Absurd Supreme Court rulings notwithstanding, few would believe big corporations have all the attributes of people. For one thing, people have hearts. Big corporations don’t these days, if they ever did. Pfizer, the biggest drug provider in the world proved it once again this holiday season.
Pfizer announced on Dec. 5 that it will cut its primary-care
sales force. The corporation did not specify how many people will lose their
jobs, or at which locations the cuts will be made. It would be hard to design
an announcement to induce more stress in employees and have a more negative
effect on productivity if one had those goals in mind. Thousands now are sitting
and wondering, “Will it be me?”
The doomed workers won’t have to stew for long, however. The
company said it will notify affected employees of their job termination on Dec.
20. What a Christmas present!
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| Apparently not employee lives |
Couldn’t this affair have been handled in a more sensitive
way? A simple delay of the whole thing until after the holidays would have been
better. And a public announcement the same day the notices were delivered
probably would have been less stressful for those involved. Perhaps the dolts
who planned the timing could do something positive and hand themselves a
termination notice.
But than, the whole affair smells like a year-end stock manipulation. The news was "leaked" to Dow Jones. Nevertheless, if a stock price uptick is the goal the result still shows a lack of sensitivity toward employees.
According to my local newspaper, Pfizer has reduced its
workforce by about 50,000 people since 2005. Despite this indication of
long-time poor management, the company continues to reward its top executives
with huge multimillion-dollar compensation packages.
Maybe those managers
could do the company a favor by taking early retirements. That would free lots of salary
money that could be used to retain employees who make positive contributions to
the corporation. That would show some real heart.
