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0 pointsratww3y ago0 comments

I've worked (as in actively worked) in a couple restructuring efforts, and it went fine, but it wasn't on tech, it was on education. It went massively well. The universities were financially healthier afterwards, and all the remaining employees had safer (union!) jobs.

The trick for this being successful is most of the time by challenging the processes themselves, rather than the employees. Employees aren't useless, but process are. The reason you need 500 people rather than 250 or 100 or 50 to do something might be simply because you said so somewhere or sometime.

So, companies should review and change processes BEFORE reducing headcount. But alas, companies don't ever do it, because it requires introspection, egolessness and actual work, the sorta stuff that is rare in upper management.

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marcosdumay3y ago

> because it requires introspection, egolessness and actual work, the sorta stuff that is rare in upper management

It also may reduce the need for middle and upper management.

In fact, if you give people some confidence that they won't be fire and instead you will use their work on some more valuable action, ICs will line up on your door with ideas on how to cut their processes. But management won't.

ratwwOP3y ago

Exactly. In the two restructurings I worked there were lots of people that everyone knew were fundamental to the workings of the institutions. Those people were confident they would stay, and ended up getting amazing raises afterwards so they could continue. Most of the complaints were from teachers who were there for years but were still working only 4-8 hours week, or people that had purely bureaucratic functions.

Amusingly, the best "firing" in one of those was the Dean of the University that had a seven-figure salary. The board replaced him with an administrator and with someone else from the faculty, and both were more qualified, but costed 1/10 of the price (still a huge raise for them).