偷懒的老板爱裁员

    但是，上面说的那些首席执行官并不关心员工的死活，董事会的成员同样如此，他们对裁员也不以为意。（事实上，有些董事会成员还是裁员的积极倡导者。）他们并没有意识到，裁员往往意味着公司的高管经营不善，未能准确地预测用工需求——而董事会成员也未能确保公司得到有效的管理。

    然而，实际问题比管理层缺乏责任感更严重，因为董事会非但没有因为管理层的失职而予以惩戒，反而给予丰厚的奖励。

    以最近摩根大通（J.P. Morgan）爆出的案子为例。据《纽约时报》（J.P. Morgan）报道，一宗抵押贷款支持证券欺诈案的文件显示，“摩根大通及……华盛顿互惠银行（Washington Mutual）、贝尔斯登（Bear Stearns）为了追求利润，藐视质量控制并忽略问题，有时候甚至完全掩盖问题。为了提高利润，华盛顿互惠银行实施了‘斯嘉丽计划’（Project Scarlett），将尽职调查职员裁汰了25%。”

    摩根大通董事会是怎么处理这件事的呢？尽管CEO杰米•戴蒙裁减了人员——或者说没能招募到银行需要的人才，但在去年“伦敦鲸事件”发生之前，董事会给了他创纪录的高额奖金，因为公司的利润创下了新高

    摩根大通的做法远远不是个例。大多数董事会在公司大规模裁员的情况下依然给高管支付高额奖金。

    据《福布斯》杂志（Forbes ，2012年9月）的报道，惠普的梅格•惠特曼净身价17亿美元。惠普当前的经营状况太差，仿佛只有裁员将近3万人才能扭转颓势。于是董事会以“根据绩效支付工资”为由，2012年支付了惠特曼超过1,500万美元的高额年薪。尽管这一年她的办公室很小（点击此处查看图片），但财会数据显示，她在这一年的出游可以用奢华来形容。她的工资当中有20万美元是私人飞机使用费。（单单是这笔钱就足以创造一、两个工作岗位了。）

    同甘共苦的精神到哪里去了？有些公司的办公室上贴着这样的标语：“团结一心，众志成城”（"TEAM – together everyone achieves more."），这是我见过的最虚伪的团队标语之一。董事会应该践行它——如果做不到，就应该把它从墙上撕掉。

    据加拿大媒体《纪事先驱报》（Chronicle Herald）报道，在RIM（Research in Motion），即现在的黑莓（Blackberry），哈利法克斯的员工抱怨去年公司的裁员行动惨无人道，但很多人都敢怒不敢言。

    乌奇捷利称：“要想解决这个问题，并不需要什么奇招。真正重要的是树立起维权意识。员工应该意识到……他们可以说不。他们并不一定非得妥协。”

    裁员并非不可避免。他说：“上世纪70年代末，裁员的现象开始出现时，连天主教会都发出牧函，反对裁员，从而阻止了这一现象的蔓延。我们每个人都应该对裁员说不。”

    摩根大通计划裁员17,000人，惠普计划裁员29,000人，像这些公司的股东应该对高管领奖金的做法予以谴责。只有这样，才能重新激发有价值的对话，让人们意识到就业保障的重要性。对高管们的天价薪酬说“不”可以传递出一个清晰的信号，那就是，一旦高管认定公司需要裁员，董事会也会扣减他们的奖金。

    本文作者埃莉诺•布洛斯汉姆是董事会咨询公司价值联盟和公司治理联盟（The Value Alliance and Corporate Governance Alliance）的首席执行官。（财富中文网）

    译者：Nasca

    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.

    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.

    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."

    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.

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

    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.)

    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.

    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.

    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."

    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.

    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.

    Eleanor Bloxham is CEO of The Value Alliance and Corporate Governance Alliance, a board advisory firm.