Workforce Change
Description
This research encompasses layoffs, furloughs and restructuring, global practices that affect millions of employees and thousands of companies every year. In this work I aim to replace bad practice that damages trust with good (or at least better) practice through cases, notes, and articles. The most recent articles include “Layoffs can be Bad Business: 5 Strategies to Consider Before Cutting Staff,” (HBS Working Knowledge 2023) and “What Companies Still Get Wrong about Layoffs,” (HBR website 2023), which builds on “Layoffs That Don’t Break Your Company: Better Approaches to Workforce Change,” (HBR 2018) and “How to Make Furloughs More Humane,” (HBR Digital 2020). The new 2023 HBS case, “Layoffs in the Tech Industry: 2022-2023” chronicles the most recent layoff practices of tech companies, and the 2023 HBS note, “Economic Analysis: The Hidden Costs of Layoffs and Managing Staff Reductions” describes the compelling evidence that these practices may be common and if managed well, can pave a sustainable path to the future, but if not, can undermine company functioning in damaging and predictable ways.