CASE STUDY

Jenna Richards is the senior human resource director for the tape storage division of Vully Technology Inc. (VTI). Jenna has been with the company since its inception. Last week, Jenna was part of an executive committee meeting in which overall cost reductions surfaced as an issue. One likely option that was explored was to significantly reduce human capital costs. If adopted, this would be the second reduction in human capital to occur in Jenna's unit in the past three years. Jenna knows that it is important to balance business efficiency considerations with compassion for employees who may lose their jobs after many years with VTI. Additionally, Jenna is concerned about the long-term success of the organization and the morale and performance of the employees who remain in the event of a reduction in force (RIF). She knows that the road ahead will be rough and that it will be her responsibility to ensure that the organization navigates that road with care in order to maintain profitability.

Vulley Technology Inc. History

VTI, headquartered in San Jose, CA, was established in 1992 during the dot-com boom. It competes in the computer storage industry, specifically offering a tape drive portfolio of products which provides backup and recovery capabilities to organizations. Most recently, VTI introduced a network attached product: a server dedicated to file sharing only. VTI went public in 1998. It is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol VTI. Over the past 10 years, the stock price has increased in value from $10.25 to $45.33. This year, the stock price started at $35.06; hit a low of $28.13 in February; and hit its all-time high of $45.33 in June. When it went public, VTI had a workforce of 100 employees. Today, VTI has a global workforce of approximately 6,500 regular employees and 1,500 contingent workers. The company's culture has historically been very employee-friendly. For example, even though private pension plans have all but become extinct, VTI provides a pension plan. This defined benefit retirement plan was established to provide a strong base for building retirement security for VTI employees. Benefits under this plan had been funded 100 percent by VTI with no contribution made by the employee. This practice stopped for incoming employees in 2005 and was replaced by an increased percentage match for the existing 401(k) plan, a voluntary program and valuable savings source for employees' future financial needs. Bob Cuellar, VTI's CEO, consistently tells employees, shareholders, and the press that "VTI is successful only because we have the most talented, well-trained, and rewarded employees in the industry." Due to its treatment of employees, VTI has been able to avoid the unionization of its workforce. However, because of the uncertain climate in the high-tech industry and a recent RIF, talk of unionization has arisen in the past two years. VTI's workforce had grown significantly since 1998 but has only remained steady over the past year. Fortunately, the organizational culture is such that VTI leaders have been able to re-skill and shift resources to cover "hot" and future projects, rather than reducing headcount through a formal RIF. Eighteen months ago, however, the first RIF in VTI history occurred. In that RIF, the tape storage division lost 79 employees, primarily through early retirement incentives. The tape storage division currently has approximately 700 employees. The employees are scattered throughout the United States, including three recently acquired sites in Northern California; Durham, North Carolina; and Houston, Texas.

Human Capital Cost Savings Strategies

Jenna, the finance department, and other members of the executive team are charged with exploring a reduction in human capital expenditures. Given Jenna's HR expertise, she encourages the team to consider a number of different strategies to reach the budget target while avoiding an involuntary RIF. Each of these strategies includes anticipated savings based on the previous RIF.

Early Retirement

Jenna believes that offering early retirement packages is one of the best ways to reduce costs and still produce a favorable outcome for employees. Generally, this involves offering attractive incentives for employees to leave the organization. Eligible employees (based on a combination of the number of years of service at VTI and age) receive one week of severance pay for each year of service and other benefits. For example, an employee whose combination of years of service (with a minimum of 15 years of service) plus age equaled 53 or higher is eligible to take early retirement, with a minimum of six months' severance and maximum of 12 months' severance. In addition, VTI would pay 100 percent of health care benefits for five years. In the short term, this is an expensive strategy; it takes three early retirements to equal one involuntary reduction in force. Further, because this approach was used in the previous cost reduction initiative, the unit is in danger of losing too many of its senior employees and the organizational knowledge they possess. Today, 105 (15 percent) of the employees in the tape storage unit are eligible for early retirement.

Voluntary Leave of Absence (VLOA)

VLOA is another voluntary cost reduction strategy in which employees agree to leave VTI for a specified period of time, usually between six months and one year. After that time, employees are eligible to return to the company. This is a short-term strategy. In the previous initiative, very few employees requested a VLOA.

Redeployment It is possible that employees in the tape storage unit can be redeployed to other VTI units. This would result in a cost savings to the unit and at the same time, retain organizational knowledge, since employees would remain with VTI. Redeployed employees are immediately taken off the tape storage unit books with no severance package, making this option the most cost-efficient means of meeting the targeted reduction.

Standardized Unit-level Cuts

One simple approach to a cost saving initiative is to have each manager in the unit reduce costs by 20 percent. This would leave the decision and administrative process for implementation to each manager's discretion.

Reduction in Force

Jenna finds the involuntary RIF the least attractive option. Not only has VTI attempted to avoid RIFs in the past, this option requires making difficult decisions and delivering difficult messages. Based on the size of the cost reductions necessary, however, it appears that an involuntary RIF will be necessary.

Who Should Stay and Who Should Go

With the agonizing decision to actually initiate a layoff, Jenna considers a variety of criteria to determine who to lay off to reach the cost reduction target. She realizes that determining the selection criteria is one of the single most important things to consider. Jenna also realizes that the methodology and decisions should be legally defensible to minimize the potential for litigation. Jenna needs to consider protected classes, including those over 40 years of age and ethnicity, and ensure that these classes are not adversely impacted by the RIF. Just as with any employment decision, RIFs must be made with the appropriate laws and guidelines in mind.

Performance. One factor to consider is overall job performance. Consider retaining those that exceed job expectations against goals and possess good leadership skills; have a flexible skillset; and are adaptable to change.

Time in Job. Jenna realizes that in many organizations, especially unionized companies, seniority is a significant factor in determining whom to lay off. Despite the non-union environment, during the last RIF, the "fairness" of laying off more senior employees who had been "loyal" to the company was questioned.

Salary. From a financial standpoint, eliminating higher-paid employees will likely result in fewer total jobs lost. Jenna may consider using job salaries as one of the criteria for the layoff. These criteria should include looking at where employees are paid by job and consider cutting those with higher salaries (e.g., over midpoint in the salary band).

Skillset Needed Going Forward. Based on the overall strategy and product roadmap, Jenna should consider what skillsets (technical and non-technical) the unit will need going forward to achieve both business and financial goals.

Project Position Eliminated. Jenna might also take into consideration what work the division will no longer be doing and whether specific projects (e.g., terabyte tape project) or positions (e.g., program management of the next tape storage release) could be eliminated.

Temporary Headcount. Another initially attractive option is to consider eliminating the 150 temporary employees in the tape storage unit. Unfortunately, Jenna knows that in virtually all cases, the temporary employees were hired to address critical skill gaps that existed in the regular employee base.

Realizing that a layoff is a likely option, Jenna drafts a timeline and two communication messages. Exhibit B presents the planning and communication timeline. The draft Notification Letter to affected employees and the draft e-mail message to all VTI tape storage employees are also provided.

The Decision-making Process

After managers in the tape storage unit agreed on the set of criteria, each manager reviewed all direct reports and generated a list of possible employees to lay off. A brief explanation of why each individual was selected was provided. The leadership team of the tape storage unit made the final determination of which specific employees would be laid off. This list was subject to a legal review prior to implementation.

The Notification Process

The process to notify affected employees was reasonably effective during the previous layoff. Regardless of the number of employees subject to layoff, VTI decided to adhere to the guidelines outlined in the WARN Act, even though it was not legally required to do so. Based on the previous experience, Jenna prepared two documents to assist in the notification process. Since affected employees' immediate supervisors were the individuals notifying those employees in person, Jenna developed an outline of points for them to cover and a notification letter to be delivered during the meetings

The Survivors

After the actual layoff, Jenna knows that it is important to help the organization, especially the tape storage unit, return to normalcy and productivity. To help re-engage the staff, it is critical that the management team be visible and available to both those affected by the RIF and those who survived. Organizational leaders must be available to answer questions, discuss the future, honor the past, and, in general, be available for employees who just want to talk about what happened or their personal situation. Using a model such as William Bridges' "Managing TransitionsMaking the Most of Change" (2003), where you say goodbye to the 'known', shift into a neutral state and then move forward, is vital to the success of this type of transition.

Answer ALL question individually in detailed essay explanations using the information above and using in-cite references, please!

1. Assume that Jenna will need to orchestrate a layoff as part of the cost savings solution. Evaluate the different criteria options proposed to select the employees to lay off (e.g., performance, time in job, salary, skillset needed going forward, project position eliminated, and temporary headcount). What are the advantages of each option? What are the risks of each option? Are there other criteria that can be used? If you were Jenna, which criteria would you be inclined to use and why?

2. Assume performance is used as one of the selection criteria. Discuss in detail the specific performance data Jenna will need to obtain and how she will access it.

3. What steps should Jenna take to minimize the risk of wrongful terminations? What legal issues should be considered?

4. What is your assessment of the two draft communications provided (the letter to affected employees and the e-mail to all employees)? Is there anything you would change? If so, what?

5. How can Jenna address negative morale within the department, increase employee motivation and engagement, and mitigate any retention issues?

6. How can Jenna continue to ensure high performance among remaining team members? How can she proactively mitigate performance issues?