Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jessee recently told employees that a new plan requiring them to be in the office five days a week is not a “backdoor layoff.”
Yet his reported comments at a company-wide meeting last week did not negate an earlier suggestion by a senior manager that staff who fail to comply could seek work elsewhere.
As companies try to rein in costs and limit workplace initiatives that don’t help profits, workers are wary of falling prey to a fresh horror: stealth layoffs.
Along with a series of recently publicly announced large-scale layoffs from companies including Nissan, Boeing and Citigroup — employers have quietly made a series of small-scale layoffs over apparently minor violations of company policy. Justifying.
The focus here is not on the size and scope of layoff programs, how humanely managers handled them or whether affected staff were offered support or severance pay, but on the specific reasoning behind the decisions.
For example, Facebook owner Meta fired about two dozen staff for misusing food credit vouchers, while EY fired a group of employees for watching multiple training videos together, the Financial Times reported. What is the report?
Violations that workers have dismissed as minor mistakes in the past may now be dismissalable offenses, raising questions about whether cost savings are being disguised.
“Like most stories, there are two sides to this,” says Leo Martin, managing director of Good Corporation, a business ethics consultancy that helps organizations design, build and implement their ethics and compliance programs. Helps to improve. “From the employee’s perspective, they may have been given unrealistic deadlines, overworked or given clear guidance about what is expected, while the employer may feel that a perk is unfair. Using or taking shortcuts harms their system, [and that] Cheating on exams or lying about training. . . There is a fundamental breach of trust.”
Part of the incentive to be tough on employees may be to make an example of someone who is perceived as a rule breaker. This level of corporate discipline has been more common in heavily regulated industries, such as banking and financial services, which have heavy compliance functions and the risk of heavy fines for any breach of conduct.
Amanda Rajkumar, who has held senior HR leadership roles at JPMorgan Chase and BNP Paribas, says: “Banks and financial services have always come down hard. . . related to the strong regulatory environment and the fiduciary nature of the industry. Given the strong need to demonstrate exemplary, ethical behavior.
Another incentive for a tough stance is that small infractions, such as taking advantage of company privileges or bending minor rules, can foreshadow more serious ethical lapses. This has fueled a “zero tolerance” approach to policy enforcement in some sectors, as companies strive to maintain what they see as a culture of integrity. An example of a financial crisis was when Fidelity Investments fired employees for participating in a fantasy football league that was against the company’s gambling policy.
Earlier this year, several employees at US retailer Target were fired after they used their status as staff to buy the coveted Stanley Cup ahead of customers.
“The spotlight should be on the reason or motivation of employees to break the rules,” Rajkumar adds. “Deliberate misuse of company resources usually indicates low engagement or specific gripes against the firm.”
The recent trend of employees turning to online platforms has forced some companies to reframe their approach to address their frustration over perceived misconduct or indiscriminate firings by employers. . Websites like LinkedIn and the anonymous review site, Glassdoor, give workers an outlet for complaints about their bosses, which can then spread quickly and damage employers’ reputations.
In one example that went viral this year, Brittany Petsch, an employee at internet company Cloudflare, recorded her nine-minute virtual meeting with HR representatives in which she was fired, and posted it on TikTok, prompting a A new “Quit-Tok” trend was born. . In the video, Pietsch confronted his seniors about the reasons for his dismissal, but they had “no specific” answer or “explanation”.
With informed employee complaints about terminations no longer confined to private HR files, some companies seek to minimize backlash and reduce reputational risk by emphasizing policy-based grounds for termination.
Recruiters, HR heads and workplace experts say whether an employer has presented a clear case for dismissal is becoming as important as the method of dismissal.
“Companies have to be more careful when firing staff because people are more vocal. We’re in an age where sudden decisions can have big repercussions,” says Habiba Khatun, director at headhunter Robert Walters.
She adds that in her experience managers are so wary of firing workers that they delay taking action until there is a record of repeated performance problems or behavior that violates company policy. go
The woman says more companies are talking about so-called “ethical firings.” It refers to a transparent, rules-based approach to termination, where managers can point to concrete policy violations rather than subjective issues, such as workers being a “poor fit.”
Targeting layoffs in this way has some advantages for employers. Decisions based on documented violations can help reduce staff numbers—and cut costs—without the optics of a struggling business that comes with mass layoffs. And unlike large rounds of layoffs, which often require severance packages, layoffs for behavioral issues are generally exempt from such obligations.
Lucas Shaw, an expert on recruitment and retention strategies, says he has been part of a conversation in which a senior staff member of a company – not one of his clients – directed his IT team to identify an individual. Look for malpractices on record to avoid paying high prices. Redundancy Settlement “It’s incredibly confidential.”
Employment experts say such practices emphasize the need for staff to closely read and understand company policies and regulations, which are more strictly enforced than in the past.
The advice for employers is to provide strong and simple guidelines about what is acceptable and what is not. Rules and disciplinary procedures should be applied unambiguously and fairly irrespective of the seniority of an employee.
“Companies need to ensure that they conduct a fair and thorough investigation into any allegations of misconduct,” says GoodCorporation’s Martin. “This not only ensures that a proper process is followed, Rather, it can also protect an organization from accusations that what they are doing may be purposeful.”
In an era when workers prefer transparency, the implementation of an election code of conduct can erode trust as employees may see it as an excuse to target some staff. This, in the long run, “could be more damaging to the company than the actual employee misconduct”, Martin warned.
