Downsizing History and Trends

As a New York businessman in the early 20th century launching into a new era of industrial growth in business, maximizing profits is a top priority. Employing as many workers as possible, with as little pay as possible is the goal. Company’s can do this because the new implementation of machines in their factories is on the incline, putting unskilled labor at the bottom of the pay scale. Why pay top dollar for a worker to do the same job a machine can do faster and for less? Unskilled labor in big factories were now the only job people can get, forcing them to accept pay that is next to nothing. Children are being put to work now by their families to help bring home

* Downsizing: Reduction of the business portfolio by eliminating products and businesses units that aren’t profitable.

One of the biggest changes in this new American society was the move from agricultural based jobs, to factory based jobs. People’s lives changed drastically because of it. Families no longer worked as a single unit, but rather each family member went out to work and bring money to the family. However,

“The United States economy prospered during the war, factories became very efficient. They made weapons and turned out supplies for the war. After the fighting ended, the same factories began making peace time products.” (Corrigan 6) Before the war, many jobs were confined to either farms or handyman jobs. With the demand of wartime products such as guns, ammunition, and uniforms, factories provided americans with millions of jobs. Young, old, skilled, and unskilled, were working long hours in these factories; and they were working for little or no pay. As well as these factories providing jobs for Americans, they also provided jobs to the millions of immigrants, who also worked for little to no pay. Also due to the improvement of technology, came the invention of the assembly line which brought mass production and jobs. Washing machines, microwaves, radios, and automobiles were some of many of the new modern conveniences. “The rich became much richer during this decade, but many poor people did not benefit at all from the country's growth.” (Corrigan 6) The social classes stayed the same, this was a result of the new “American Dream”. The wealthy began to be driven by wealth and money. The two upper classes split into two: ones with new money, and those with old. Those with old money usually inherited it in the form of land, investments, or money. Ones with new money, were often very young and spent their money

Downsizing refers to the voluntary actions on the part of organizations to reduce the overall size of their workforce, generally to reduce costs. The disadvantages of downsizing in a survey by the American Society of

All of this leads to postwar America in the 1950s. The demand of factory workers was no longer present and technology development was a game changer. New automation began taking jobs from people, which allowed for

Using the indirect and direct communication approach towards downsizing of the business, has allowed the establishment of the following communication plan, for management to notify employees of job role terminations, due to a financial hardship.

Downsizing is never easy on the Human Resource department. In fact, if not handled properly, it could be detrimental to the overall organization. Here are some challenges that come along with downsizing: Addressing the shifting morale and needs of the surviving employees, maintaining the productivity and profitability of the organization, and retaining skilled, and qualified employees.

A corporation needs to have a strategic plan in place in order for them to be able to implement a downsizing. There are many pros and cons to downsizing and it has a ripple effect on everyone in the corporation. Depending on the planning of the downsizing, one of the big issues to decide on is how to choose who will be terminated. For example, do you go by seniority, a percentage from all departments, an entire department, or by job level or position? These are major options that need to be addressed before anything happens. Most corporations today exist less for the well being of employees than they

Downsizing has become a commonplace strategy for organizations to adopt in an effort to cut costs, eliminate redundancies, and streamline organizational systems. Over the last 15 years, many organizations have engaged in downsizing more than once. Most companies have learned from the mistakes of the past, but some companies are still trying to use the same tactics today that were used in the mid 1980s, that leave employees reeling.

The reenergizing employees after a downsizing case study, explains the potential effects of downsizing a company, on both employees and the manager. Andrea Zuckerman is the editor in chief of Blaze and the person who must relay the message to the entire company. It is made clear throughout the case that Andrea does not agree with this downsizing and feels that it is wrong. However, due to the newspaper industry dwindling away and many people now reading the news from a mobile device, it must be done. Andrea’s biggest conflict is figuring out how to properly explain this downsizing to employees, as this is no easy task. The “new normal” that will be implemented consists of merging the five areas of reporting into either two or three. As said, explaining this situation to employees in a reasonable and understanding manner will be a complex task.

|companies adopt practices that eliminate or reduce potential problems, including open communications, fair severance |

Twenty-five years ago, firms conducted global trade; however, it was not as complex or as interrelated in comparison to today because there was less outside influence and the world was less connected. Firms then were able to use known rule sets, or past business knowledge, to adjust operations to respond to change (Vecchiato, 2015). As time passed and organizations grew more complex and diverse, so did market conditions and external influences on an organization. With a growing reliance on global competition, cross border outsourcing, and an interconnected world, there are many external influences and forces in today’s market environment. Although international trade enabled firms to lower prices to gain competitiveness, it also increased environmental uncertainty. Furthermore, a reliance on external sourcing, or outsourcing, allows today’s firms to cut costs but also increases external influences on an organization. In today’s interrelated markets, a crisis in one country that produces outsourced goods will influence a prime organization in another country. As an example of growing external influence, the explosion of technology and use of social media has created an overabundance of

The purpose of this report was to examine organization restructuring. Research for the report included literature based on organizational restructuring and the various processes involved in restructuring. The major findings indicate that the two methods commonly used for organizational restructuring to be downsizing and reengineering of business processes(Cummings & Worley, 2008). Downsizing assist the company to reduce its workforce, and this saves cost in terms of payroll reduction. Reengineering allows a company to change and adapt to the way it

Downsizing, restructuring, rightsizing, even a term as obscure as census readjustment has been used to describe the plague that has been affecting corporate America for years and has left many of its hardest working employees without work. In the year 2001 we had nearly 1.8 million jub cuts, that’s almost three times as much as the year 2000(Matthew Benz). In the 1990's, one million managers of American corporations with salaries over $40,000 also lost their jobs. In total, Fortune 500 companies have eliminated 4.4 million positions since 1979 including the 65,000 positions cut in February of 2002 (Ellen Florian). Although this downsizing of companies can have many reasons behind it and cannot be