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I don't think I've ever seen a company cut employees en masse like this truly help a company come from behind to regain their former status. It sends so many wr

I don't think I've ever seen a company cut employees en masse like this truly help a company come from behind to regain their former status. It sends so many wrong messages. If those 10% of your company aren't worthwhile, why were they hired and employed in the first place? If management can afford to cut staff by 10%, the C and VP level management should be fired. Start by cutting at the top, not at the bottom. Cutting that deep means that management was fine with spending money like drunken sailors. Nothing RIM or Nokia has announced in the last few months in terms of changes has shown that they are going to do anything other than wither and die on the vine.

dsmithn 15y ago
I can't disagree with the first two paragraphs, but for the last, what about shutting down entire divisions? If a company invested in a failed product that requires a number of specialized employees, does it imply they were spending money like drunken sailors when they have to let them go?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- cpeterso 15y ago
  I'm reminded of Steve Job's advice to Nike: "Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff."
izend 15y ago
"I don't think I've ever seen a company cut employees en masse like this truly help a company come from behind to regain their former status." Apple?
- kenjackson 15y ago
  http://articles.sfgate.com/1997-03-15/business/17744320_1_apple-s-cupertino-apple-workers-drake-beam-morin http://articles.sfgate.com/1997-03-15/business/17744320_1_ap... Apple laid off 4000 in 1997. I've heard things went pretty well afterwards.
VladRussian 15y ago
nothing will help these companies. It is time for them to go. Look at the bright side though - 2000 of mobile developers is relieved from working on dead-end products and ready to be injected into red-hot mobile hiring market to work on the successful mobile products. Its win-win for everybody - the developers, their new companies, consumers.
- hello_moto 15y ago
  What makes you think that all 2000 are engineers? RIM consists of many departments (IT, Sales, Marketing, R&D). They also have stuff like SAP for their ERP systems. That thing needs a team of developers that don't necessary develop "mobile" software. From my knowledge, there are competing software/apps within the internal RIM ecosystems itself so these people that got laid off could potentially be the result of internal wars. For example: software A that was built using the old RIM ecosystems (from the OS, the API, the toolkit, etc) and old mobile paradigms/concepts competes against software B that was built based on the latest web 2.0 + mobile crazed. Perhaps it's time for software A to die. Some companies might just shift these engineers to software B's team while other decided to shut down the whole team (sometime it's not easy to integrate new team members, especially if software B was a result of acquisition).
dfc 15y ago
IBM in the 80s? Maybe they did not regain their status as "the computer company," but they certainly carried out quite a turn around.
Perceval 15y ago
That was Jack Welch's famous method at GE: fire the bottom 10% of management every year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch#Tenure_as_CEO_of_GE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch#Tenure_as_CEO_of_GE
andrewcross 15y ago
From one of my friends who worked at RIM on a co-op job less than a year ago: "I definitely saw a lot of redundant jobs and am not surprised they're cutting this many". They were hiring anyone and everyone they could for a while there, so I think this is a good move. Keep the best employees are double down on them.
- somebear 15y ago
  In these situations it's just hard to be sure you are keeping the best employees.

dsmithn 15y ago

I can't disagree with the first two paragraphs, but for the last, what about shutting down entire divisions? If a company invested in a failed product that requires a number of specialized employees, does it imply they were spending money like drunken sailors when they have to let them go?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
cpeterso 15y ago
I'm reminded of Steve Job's advice to Nike: "Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff."

izend 15y ago

"I don't think I've ever seen a company cut employees en masse like this truly help a company come from behind to regain their former status." Apple?

kenjackson 15y ago
http://articles.sfgate.com/1997-03-15/business/17744320_1_apple-s-cupertino-apple-workers-drake-beam-morin http://articles.sfgate.com/1997-03-15/business/17744320_1_ap... Apple laid off 4000 in 1997. I've heard things went pretty well afterwards.

VladRussian 15y ago

nothing will help these companies. It is time for them to go. Look at the bright side though - 2000 of mobile developers is relieved from working on dead-end products and ready to be injected into red-hot mobile hiring market to work on the successful mobile products. Its win-win for everybody - the developers, their new companies, consumers.

hello_moto 15y ago
What makes you think that all 2000 are engineers? RIM consists of many departments (IT, Sales, Marketing, R&D). They also have stuff like SAP for their ERP systems. That thing needs a team of developers that don't necessary develop "mobile" software. From my knowledge, there are competing software/apps within the internal RIM ecosystems itself so these people that got laid off could potentially be the result of internal wars. For example: software A that was built using the old RIM ecosystems (from the OS, the API, the toolkit, etc) and old mobile paradigms/concepts competes against software B that was built based on the latest web 2.0 + mobile crazed. Perhaps it's time for software A to die. Some companies might just shift these engineers to software B's team while other decided to shut down the whole team (sometime it's not easy to integrate new team members, especially if software B was a result of acquisition).

dfc 15y ago

IBM in the 80s? Maybe they did not regain their status as "the computer company," but they certainly carried out quite a turn around.

Perceval 15y ago

That was Jack Welch's famous method at GE: fire the bottom 10% of management every year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch#Tenure_as_CEO_of_GE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch#Tenure_as_CEO_of_GE

andrewcross 15y ago

From one of my friends who worked at RIM on a co-op job less than a year ago: "I definitely saw a lot of redundant jobs and am not surprised they're cutting this many". They were hiring anyone and everyone they could for a while there, so I think this is a good move. Keep the best employees are double down on them.

somebear 15y ago
In these situations it's just hard to be sure you are keeping the best employees.