So It Begins…

A while back I mentioned that our company hired a new CEO, and that personnel changes usually accompany such a move.

Well, so it begins…

Several high-ranking execs at my company recently got the boot, replaced by others probably more to the new CEO’s liking. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It’s his prerogative to bring in people more in tune with his vision for the future of the company. Let’s hope, however, he handled any dismissals with respect for those individuals, who worked hard and have families to support. It’s always difficult to lose your job.

Of course, we don’t know why they were let go. They may have decided it was time to move on of their own accord. Perhaps they were asked to relocate and didn’t want to move their families. It may have been a mutual decision. As the old saying goes, did they jump or were they pushed? We don’t know.

And at this point we don’t know how far those changes will filter down. Will the entire upper management structure be overhauled? Will he replace every low-level clerk and IT person? That would be foolish, and overly disruptive to the running of the company on a short-term basis.

I don’t think economics is the reason behind these changes. The company made some cuts in products and people before the new CEO came onboard, and I don’t think they would have hired this new guy if all the board wanted to do was slash staff and products. They didn’t need a new CEO for that.

Contrast to that my former workplace. Revenues were down, the parent company was threatening to pull the plug on the entire unit and my former managers panicked and started slashing staff in a willy-nilly manner, all in the name of saving of a company that was sinking anyway.

Yet in both instances, favoritism comes into play. The new CEO and my former managers are simply hiring or saving their handpicked lapdogs, cherry-picking who stays and goes. It’s a form of corporate feudalism. (More on that later.)

How this all impacts the lowly serfs working the fields is hard to say at this time. But I do know one thing: We’ll be the last ones to know.