Nokia's Bridge Program: Redesigning Layoffs (A)

Sandra J. Sucher; Susan J. Winterberg

Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2015 (Revised August 2016)

Nokia's Bridge Program: Redesigning Layoffs (A)

by Sandra J. Sucher and Susan J. Winterberg

Abstract

"Not another Bochum." Nokia Board Chairman Jorma Ollila was clear in the goals he set for the 2011 restructuring that Nokia's new CEO, Stephen Elop, had decided was necessary to address the dramatically changed competitive environment the company faced in smartphones and mobile phones. The strategy shift would include transitioning Nokia's phone operating system to Microsoft Windows, and closing phone R&D centers and factories in 13 countries, with layoffs that would eventually impact 18,000 employees. Yet with several important R&D projects still under development, and capacity needed in factories for many more months, Nokia's board and leaders wanted to avoid the mistakes the company had made in a plant shutdown in Bochum, Germany in 2008. EVP of Corporate Relations and Responsibility Esko Aho was mandated to develop a "Nokia way" to implement the restructuring that would reflect the company's values and allow them to maintain morale and commitment among the employees who would eventually lose their jobs. The case describes the development of Nokia's "Bridge" program, a comprehensive approach to helping employees find new employment opportunities and to replacing jobs in communities where Nokia had been a major employer. The case challenges students to make decisions such as when and how to tell employees about a layoff, how to manage local government leaders, and what support to provide in 13 different countries, each with its own legal and regulatory environment, cultural norms, and expectations and needs of employees and local communities.

Keywords: layoffs; plant closure; outplacement; shared value; Business or Company Management; Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Restructuring; Employee Relationship Management; Telecommunications Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

23 pages

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Citation:

Sucher, Sandra J., and Susan J. Winterberg. "Nokia's Bridge Program: Redesigning Layoffs (A)." Harvard Business School Case 315-002, February 2015. (Revised August 2016.)

Article | Harvard Business Review | May–June 2018

Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company: Better Approaches to Workforce Transition

Sandra J. Sucher and Shalene Gupta

Today layoffs have become companies’ default response to the challenges created by advances in technology and global competition. Yet research shows that job cuts rarely help senior leaders achieve their goals. Too often, they’re done for short-term gain, but the cost savings are overshadowed by bad publicity, loss of knowledge, weakened engagement, higher voluntary turnover, and lower innovation, which hurt profits in the long run. This article looks at better ways to handle changing workforce needs that make sparing use of staff reductions and ensure that if they do happen, the process feels fair and the affected parties have a soft landing. Most successful approaches begin with a philosophy that spells out a firm’s commitments and priorities, establish methods for exploring layoff alternatives (such as furloughs, retraining, and reassignments), and determine options for three scenarios: a healthy present, short-term volatility, and an uncertain future. As firms like AT&T, Michelin, Honeywell, and Nokia have learned, thoughtful planning helps organizations address workforce transitions and cope with a shifting economic landscape far better than layoffs do.

Keywords: Job Cuts and Outsourcing; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Employees; Transition; Strategic Planning;

Citation:

Sucher, Sandra J., and Shalene Gupta. "Layoffs That Don't Break Your Company: Better Approaches to Workforce Transition." Harvard Business Review 96, no. 3 (May–June 2018): 122–129. View Details

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Recruit Holdings, an advertising media, staffing, and business support conglomerate was founded in 1960 by Hiromasa Ezoe. Recruit was built on the principle that the company should add value to society. To do this, it hired young and talented employees and created a culture of self-efficacy. In the late 1980s, Recruit hit rough waters. First, Ezoe sold 2.8 million shares in a Recruit subsidiary before it went public to 76 Japanese leaders in politics, business, and media. The "Recruit Scandal," as it was called, resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Noburu Takeshita and his entire cabinet. A few years later, Recruit was mired in debt with interest payments of 65 billion yen when its annual income was only 62 billion yen. In the early ‘90s, the development of the Internet cut into Recruit’s core businesses, which were paper-based advertising. Yet by 2017, Recruit was a global conglomerate with $16 billion in sales. This case examines Recruit’s unique corporate culture that helped it survive a scandal so large it became a staple in Japanese textbooks, as well as Recruit’s subsequent globalization.

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