Downsizing

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 […]

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

Don’t pretend you have all the answers. Do be prepared to deal with the messy emotions people may be experiencing.

Andrew Jordan sat at his desk, absentmindedly watching a barge chug slowly upstream on the Thames. The dinner meeting he had scheduled with a select group of senior managers at Universal Products Company, Ltd. would begin in an hour. For three years, it had seemed enough to focus on the business problems of UPC’s Connectors […]

Research shows it increases the chances of bankruptcy.

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.

Six strategies to help you navigate layoffs, reorgs, and economic instability.

The organization and goals of a sales force have to change as businesses start up, grow, mature, and decline.

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...

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

Research on downsizing, gender, and race.

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

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

Better approaches to workforce transitions

Many managers have never before had to shrink their operations or workforces drastically. Now, as they struggle to weather the storm of recession, they...

The transition is coming sooner than you think.

Many cling to the idea that reducing staff is the fastest, easiest way to cut costs. But there are smarter, more humane approaches.

Most executives believe that corporations with large headquarters are bureaucratic, out of touch with customers, and slow to make decisions—and, so, perform poorly. That’s why CEOs slash headquarters staff whenever they try to cut costs or improve performance. But do lean headquarters really perform better? In collaboration with research partners around the world, we studied […]

Restructuring of current program would eliminate adverse effects and strengthen protection offered to vast majority of workers

Rather than just cut jobs, Ricardo Semler set up workers as private entrepreneurs—in his own factories.