Downsizing

Soft management does not mean weak management, says William Peace in this 1991 article. It means candor, openness, and vulnerability, but it also means...

A wounded-but-wiser AT&T veteran recounts how one of the world’s biggest and best-known companies became one of its most battered—and explains how others can avoid that fate.

It pays to go the extra mile for employees, customers, and suppliers.

A new study shows that downsizing often prompts demoralized survivors to quit, which hinders efficiency and costs companies money. To add insult to irony,...

The U.S. economy has been on the upswing for more than four years. Inflation is low, corporate profits are up, and the stock market has risen beyond anyone's...

The trend is to downsize corporate headquarters--but sometimes a bigger HQ is better.

In 1978, before restructuring was a common boardroom term, Jewel sold its Turn-Style discount department store business to the May Department Store Company. Because May could not immediately use many of the Turn-Style stores outside metropolitan Chicago, Jewel closed them. This meant that almost 3,000 full-and part-time employees were no longer needed. We in Jewel’s […]

Research on downsizing, gender, and race.

And it's hurting the companies they work for.

Astrigo is in trouble. The home improvement chain has missed its earnings forecast badly and sales are falling. A 10% reduction in staff looks like the...

Drawing on extensive research of Fortune 500 companies that have lived through industry downturns and economic recessions over the past two decades, Darrell...

As the economy softens, corporate downsizing appears almost inevitable. Don't panic yet, though. While layoff decisions might seem beyond your control,...

When implementing a major organizational decision, empower your employees through effective communication.

The transition is coming sooner than you think.

How do you reduce headcount when almost everyone gets the same scores on performance reviews? HR vice president Nils Ekdahl confronts that question at...

Managers of big retail stores have an opportunity to boost profits by maintaining or increasing staffing levels even when sales are slipping. That idea will probably sound strange to store managers, who tend to cut staff hours if there’s a dip in sales. Such cuts make perfect sense to the companies’ executives, given that big […]

Conventional wisdom says that layoffs are a necessary evil during economic downturns, but new research shows that shareholders tend to punish companies...

A division manager must decide whether to fight 11% across-the-board personnel cuts or, if he is to go along with the decision, how to implement the layoffs...

Big companies used to take a big reputational hit over layoffs. That's no longer the case, according to a recent study.

How do you reduce headcount when almost everyone gets the same scores on performance reviews? HR vice president Nils Ekdahl confronts that question at...