職場"潛"規則:偷懶的老闆愛裁員

Probably every worker today has experienced -- or known someone who has experienced -- at least one layoff. Layoffs are an abomination -- for the pain they cause innocent victims -- and the lack of accountability they often represent.

如今，或許沒有哪個工薪族尚未經歷過裁員，就算一次也沒有，身邊也總會有一兩個親歷者。裁員是可憎的——它一方面給無辜的被裁者帶來痛苦，另一方面往往是決策者不負責任的表現。

Before the great recession, in 2006, Lou Uchitelle sent out a warning about the terrible costs of layoffs in his book The Disposable American: Layoffs and their Consequences. The book traces the history of job security -- and layoffs -- in the U.S. and explores the psychic trauma created by corporations' overuse of this so-called right-sizing tool.

2006年，就在金融危機前夕，路易斯·烏奇捷利在他的新書《美國的“一次性”僱工：裁員及其後果》（The Disposable American: Layoffs and their Consequences）中發出警告，指明瞭公司裁員後可能付出的慘重代價。這本書追溯了美國的就業保障和裁員史，探討了企業以“調整規模”的名義胡亂裁員給員工帶來的心理創傷。

Soon after his book came out, Uchitelle explained to me that he "made a presentation at a meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and at the end, there was a vote taken among more than 30 psychoanalysts. They were asked, 'Do you, from your experience, consider a layoff a traumatic experience?' And all of them put their hands up."

新書上市後不久，烏奇捷利告訴我，他“有一次在美國精神分析協會（American Psychoanalytic Association）的會議上演講。演講結束後，他讓現場三十多名精神分析師表決。表決的問題是，‘就你的經驗看，是否覺得被裁員是一次創傷性的體驗？’，結果所有人都舉了手。”

Many workers today don't know of a world without layoffs. But they haven't always been common. I was in New York attending a disaster recovery conference in 1992 when IBM (IBM) announced its very first layoff. I remember the shock among the IBMers attending that conference. The Big Blue rug had been pulled out from under them, and they told me they would never feel the same way about IBM again.

如今很多工薪族已經對裁員習以爲常，但是裁員並不總是這麼普遍。1992年，我在紐約參加了一次救災會議，IBM在那次會議上宣佈了公司成立以來的首次裁員計劃。當時與會員工臉上的驚愕表情我至今還記憶猶新。面對“藍色巨人”過河拆橋的舉動，他們紛紛表示，對IBM的印象再也無法回到從前。

Twenty years later, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2012 alone there were over 17,000 U.S. mass layoff events. (The Bureau defines mass layoff events as 50 employees or more laid off at a single employer.)

二十年後，勞工統計局（Bureau of Labor Statistics）發佈報告稱，僅在2012年一年，美國國內的大規模裁員事件就有17,000多起。（按照勞工統計局的定義，大規模裁員事件是指單個企業一次性裁員50人或50人以上的事件。）

Some layoff announcements are huge. HP (HPQ) recently said that they would dismiss 29,000 workers -- more than the population of many U.S. towns. This would have been unthinkable in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s.

有些公司宣佈的裁員計劃規模大得驚人。惠普（HP）近日宣佈將裁員29,000人——裁掉的員工比美國很多城鎮的總人口還要多。這在上世紀50年代、60年代、乃至70年代都是無法想象的事情。

"We're sort of a 'we invent as we go along' nation," Uchitelle said, referring to the U.S. "And we've invented some wonderful things. And one of the things we invented was job security."

“我們的國家是一個在實踐中投資的國家，”烏齊捷利在這裏說的是美國。“我們投資了一些有意義的事情，其中一項就是就業保障。”

Large corporations, labor, and government all realized job security was in their mutual best interests, beginning in the late 1800s, he said. When layoffs did happen in the 1930s, the government stepped in. Politicians of all stripes agreed that job security was important -- and job security increased over time until the mid-1970s. Since then, "we've been going away from it."

烏齊捷利表示，從19世紀末開始，大企業、勞工和政府逐漸意識到，穩固的就業保障能使三方的共同利益最大化。20世紀30年代，裁員現象真正開始出現時，政府進行了干預。各派政治人士一致認爲，就業保障很重要——隨着時間的推移，就業保障也變得日益穩固，直到20世紀70年代中期。自那以後，“我們就一直在背道而馳。”

The corporate movement away from job security coincided with the advent of big executive bonuses and the rise of global competition. Consulting firms seized the moment and devised practices to teach companies how to eliminate staff.

企業紛紛裁員，背離就業保障的同時，高管卻開始拿高額獎金，全球競爭也在升級。諮詢公司看準了這個時機，紛紛出謀劃策，幫助企業裁汰員工。

But the recommendations of the consulting firms are not agnostic. They rarely, if ever, recommend cutting the heads of those who hired them.

但是諮詢公司會給出什麼方案也可想而知，他們從來不會建議僱主裁汰自己的高管，就算有這種情況，也少之又少。

Compensation also insulates most executives from layoff shocks. Executive compensation has changed dramatically since the mid-1970s. Today, top executives receive huge bonuses that they can stash away, shielding them from any layoff distress should it strike them. In contrast, the workers most subject to cuts are unable, given their wage rates, to scrape together that level of financial freedom.

優厚的薪水也使大多數高管有能力抵禦被裁員的衝擊。自上世紀70年代中期以來，高管的薪資水平發生了很大的改變。如今，高管領取着高額的獎金，完全可以積攢大筆財富，就算被裁員，也不至於陷入困境。與此相反，最容易被裁汰的普通員工薪資水平普遍較低，積攢財富相當吃力，無法獲得同等程度的經濟自由。

Layoffs often demolish an employee's social circle and identity -- and the same is true for family members of laid off workers. During the financial crisis, layoffs forced foreclosures, leaving families homeless, and many who lost their jobs then still struggle amid dim job prospects.

裁員往往會破壞被裁員工的社交圈子和身份認同感，這一點同樣也會波及其家庭成員。金融危機期間，由於企業大規模裁員，很多人喪失抵押品贖回權，流離失所，丟掉了工作，卻依然得在嚴酷的就業環境中掙扎。

At a dinner table over the holidays, I sat next to a New York-based investment manager who told me that the CEOs who have come to visit him over the last couple of years told him that their recent layoffs were just "cutting out the dead wood" that they'd been reluctant to cut earlier.

有一次假期跟人吃飯，我旁邊坐着一個在紐約上班的投資經理。他告訴我，近幾年找上門的首席執行官都說，他們最近的裁員不過是“把以前不願意砍掉的枯枝砍掉而已”。

I had three problems with that explanation. One, management is responsible for telling individuals if their performances were not up to snuff, putting them on a program to fix it, and then removing them if corrections couldn't be made. If management was unwilling to do that simple job, they weren't managing. Two, while the CEOs might claim otherwise, often it's not the so-called dead wood who are chopped during layoffs. In fact, in small layoffs, it's the whistleblowers who spoke up (inconveniently) or anyone who made one of their bosses (or their egos) uncomfortablewho are often the first to go. And three, large layoffs are like carpet-bombing, not surgical strikes. They are like clear-cutting a forest, not removing dead wood. You will lose people you wish you had not.

我覺得這種說法有三個問題。首先，管理人員有責任判斷員工的表現是否合格，如果不合格，就應該給他們安排培訓項目，如果培訓之後依然不合格，才應該裁汰。如果管理人員連這麼簡單的工作都不願意做，那他們就沒有履行自己的職責。第二，在裁員的過程中，公司砍掉的，往往不是所謂的枯枝。當然，我說的這一點，首席執行官們不見得同意。事實上，在小規模的裁員中，最先被裁汰的無非是兩種人，一是打小報告的人（因爲沒有掌握好方法），二是冒犯了老闆（或者讓老闆自尊心受損）的人。第三，大規模裁員就像地毯式轟炸，而不是精確打擊。這樣做就好比夷平整座森林，而不是砍掉幾棵枯樹。一定會損失可遇不可求的人才。

But just as the CEOs who spoke with the investment manager weren't concerned with employee hardship, layoffs don't bother board members much either. (In fact, some are happy advocates of the process.) They don't recognize layoffs for what they too often are: a failure by top executives to properly manage the business and forecast needs -- and a failure of the board to ensure the right management is in place.

但是，上面說的那些首席執行官並不關心員工的死活，董事會的成員同樣如此，他們對裁員也不以爲意。（事實上，有些董事會成員還是裁員的積極倡導者。）他們並沒有意識到，裁員往往意味着公司的高管經營不善，未能準確地預測用工需求——而董事會成員也未能確保公司得到有效的管理。

But it's actually worse than just a lack of accountability, because rather than ding management for these failures, boards reward management for these missteps.

然而，實際問題比管理層缺乏責任感更嚴重，因爲董事會非但沒有因爲管理層的失職而予以懲戒，反而給予豐厚的獎勵。

Take the recently reported case of J.P. Morgan (JPM). Documents in a mortgage backed security fraud case "reveal that J.P. Morgan, as well as … Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns, flouted quality controls and ignored problems, sometimes hiding them entirely, in a quest for profit," theNew York Times reported. "In an initiative called Project Scarlett, Washington Mutual slashed its due diligence staff by 25% as part of an effort to bolster profit."

以最近摩根大通（J.P. Morgan）爆出的案子爲例。據《紐約時報》（J.P. Morgan）報道，一宗抵押貸款支持證券欺詐案的文件顯示，“摩根大通及……華盛頓互惠銀行（Washington Mutual）、貝爾斯登（Bear Stearns）爲了追求利潤，藐視質量控制並忽略問題，有時候甚至完全掩蓋問題。爲了提高利潤，華盛頓互惠銀行實施了‘斯嘉麗計劃’（Project Scarlett），將盡職調查職員裁汰了25%。”

And yet what is the J.P. Morgan board's response? CEO Jamie Dimon lays off staff -- or fails to hire those his bank needs -- and the board, until the London Whale trading disaster last year, paid him record bonuses for record profits.

摩根大通董事會是怎麼處理這件事的呢？儘管CEO傑米·戴蒙裁減了人員——或者說沒能招募到銀行需要的人才，但在去年“倫敦鯨事件”發生之前，董事會給了他創紀錄的高額獎金，因爲公司的利潤創下了新高

J.P. Morgan is in good company. Most boards continue to give huge bonuses to execs while they lay off workers.

摩根大通的做法遠遠不是個例。大多數董事會在公司大規模裁員的情況下依然給高管支付高額獎金。

HP's Meg Whitman has a net worth of $1.7 billion, according to Forbes (as of September 2012). And the company is in such bad shape, it seems, that it needs to cut nearly 30,000 employees. So the HP board used its own "pay for performance philosophy" to justify annual compensation of over $15 million for Whitman for 2012. While her 2012 office may have been small (you can see it here), the accounting showed she traveled in grand style last year. Her paycheck included $200,000 for personal aircraft use. (That alone is the equivalent of a job or two.)

據《福布斯》雜誌（Forbes ，2012年9月）的報道，惠普的梅格·惠特曼淨身價17億美元。惠普當前的經營狀況太差，彷彿只有裁員將近3萬人才能扭轉頹勢。於是董事會以“根據績效支付工資”爲由，2012年支付了惠特曼超過1,500萬美元的高額年薪。儘管這一年她的辦公室很小（點擊此處查看圖片），但財會數據顯示，她在這一年的出遊可以用奢華來形容。她的工資當中有20萬美元是私人飛機使用費。（單單是這筆錢就足以創造一、兩個工作崗位了。）

What happened to the idea of shared pain? One of the most insincere signs I see hanging in some corporate offices is the poster that says, "TEAM – together everyone achieves more." Boards should make sure they live up to that sign -- or take it off the wall.

同甘共苦的精神到哪裏去了？有些公司的辦公室上貼着這樣的標語：“團結一心，衆志成城”（"TEAM – together everyone achieves more."），這是我見過的最虛僞的團隊標語之一。董事會應該踐行它——如果做不到，就應該把它從牆上撕掉。

At Research in Motion, now Blackberry (BBRY), employees in Halifax complained last year that the company's layoffs were inhumane, according to the Chronicle Herald in Canada. But many workers don't speak out.

據加拿大媒體《紀事先驅報》（Chronicle Herald）報道，在RIM（Research in Motion），即現在的黑莓（Blackberry），哈利法克斯的員工抱怨去年公司的裁員行動慘無人道，但很多人都敢怒不敢言。

According to Uchitelle, "the real solution isn't some silver bullet. It's a realization among workers, people, that … they can push back. They don't have to surrender."

烏奇捷利稱：“要想解決這個問題，並不需要什麼奇招。真正重要的是樹立起維權意識。員工應該意識到……他們可以說不。他們並不一定非得妥協。”

Layoffs aren't inevitable. "When we started the layoffs in the late '70s, even the Catholic Church was putting out pastoral letters against layoffs and stopped doing so. We, all of us, have pulled back," he said.

裁員並非不可避免。他說：“上世紀70年代末，裁員的現象開始出現時，連天主教會都發出牧函，反對裁員，從而阻止了這一現象的蔓延。我們每個人都應該對裁員說不。”

To reignite a valuable dialogue on the benefits of job security, shareholders need to rebuke bonus pay for corporate executives at companies like J.P. Morgan, which plans 17,000 in staff cuts and HP, which is chopping 29,000. No votes on pay would send a clear message that when executives determine they need to cut staff, boards should slash their bonuses too.

摩根大通計劃裁員17,000人，惠普計劃裁員29,000人，像這些公司的股東應該對高管領獎金的做法予以譴責。只有這樣，才能重新激發有價值的對話，讓人們意識到就業保障的重要性。對高管們的天價薪酬說“不”可以傳遞出一個清晰的信號，那就是，一旦高管認定公司需要裁員，董事會也會扣減他們的獎金。