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By now you know the story about the HMV job cuts at the home office and the tweets that told about the firings direct from the HR office via mobile phone. One of the first tweets referred to the “mass execution of loyal employees who love the brand.”
Nearly everyone, employees, investors and outsiders know, at least subconsciously, that things are going to change when a company is in a transition of ownership or restructuring or the like. For employees there is typically a fear of workforce reduction combined with a tenuous expectation that “they won’t do that to me.” I know I have been there. More than once.
In established companies that have worked hard to establish an esprit de corps among their employees, the bond of loyalty that the company has infused in the workforce is unbreakable . . . at least from the employees’ perspectives. Employees well commit their hearts and souls to the company is a sort of patriotic allegiance, not realizing that the corner office objectives and motives may not be as purely employee-related as they have been led to believe.
Employees often have been led to believe that the company will protect them from harm in return for their loyal service. While the company, more than likely has never specifically said that, many of its actions and programs designed to maintain employee loyalty leave the “we are family” impression with the employees. Special recognition award, the annual company picnic (like a family reunion) and the annual office Christmas party (the family around the tree), and coveted service awards (thank you for your faithfulness) are just a few examples of things that promote the ideal of loyalty. Don’t get me wrong. These are all good things, in and of themselves.
The loyal employee massacre syndrome is like the Stockholm syndrome. It just happens, especially when employees are happy with their jobs and working for their company.
I have watched grown men cry, when after 20 or more years of loyal service, of giving it their all, of putting in thousand of hours of voluntary overtime to meet deadlines to ensure the company’s success, are brought into a room with 30 or 40 others and told that they are no longer employed. Several times I have had to be the messenger. I never volunteered for that assignment. It was always done to preserve the “good guy” image for the guy in the big corner office. For that guy it was always numbers – numbers that I understood very well. It was most often for a reason that I knew was necessary. But I also knew these people and their love for the company. And I knew when they asked “Why?” that any answer I could give would only cause them to ask the same question again. They wanted an answer not only that made sense, but that made sense to them personally.
I have seen the “deer in the headlights” stare of the sum total of the employees of a facility when they have been told that their plant is being shut down. I have seen them unable to comprehend how this could happen when they have worked to hard to contribute to the company’s success and image. I have witnessed the heartbreak. And I have experienced it myself.
I witnessed one company that gained employee loyalty based on the company’s pride in being an enduring symbol of American heritage. Those people bled red, white, and blue. Then the company announced that it was moving everything to China. They never knew what hit them. They were suddenly unemployed whilst the decision makers who had chosen to outsource as a result of the failures of their previous operation decisions, continued running the company into the ground.
In a takeover situation, especially where a company is faltering, the new leaders have little time to waste getting acquainted with employees. Often they need to make a quick decision. Sometimes – in my experience – the decision on who stays and who goes has been made based on, at least in part, dismissing the most loyal employees, because they are perceived as the ones being most likely to resist any paradigm shift.
What, to the board, is a good business decision, to the terminated employees feels like a betrayal and a stab in the back. Loyal employees are more than willing to take a bullet for the company, but they never expect the company to be the one with the gun.
