Needing to cut staff is a painful process as those colleagues one has decided to terminate often take the news personally or feel unjustly victimized or insufficiently appreciated.

Here are some guidelines for that unpleasant meeting in which you announce the unfortunate news that the company will no longer require your subordinate’s services.

1)  Prepare yourself in writing
You should have a short document prepared in which the reasons for the employee’s termination are clearly enumerated and the conditions of termination are clearly spelled out. You should have a work certificate already prepared and all financial arrangements already formulated.

2)  Prepare your message
Write out the ‘script’ that you intend to follow during the termination interview and also what you intend to say to the rest of your remaining team.  Stay brief and stay on subject.

3)  Prepare the follow-up steps
Meetings should be set up with your HR department as well as your jurists.  Make sure your terminated employee has handed over all relevant dossiers and company property.

4)  Shield yourself emotionally
Don’t take anything personally.
Remember that your role objective is the survival and prosperity of the company. The decision you have taken is rational, not emotional. Accept that you will be somewhat anxious and discuss the decision if necessary with your hierarchy or with HR.

5)  Anticipate your Employee’s reactions
People rarely react calmly to being told they are being terminated.  On the contrary, they can become angry, frustrated,
irrational, tearful. Understand that and prepare yourself to take the shock of their reaction and manage it as best you can.

To Do
Invite your employee to have a seat
Get right to the point
Explain your reasons
Wait for his reaction and listen attentively
Re-explain your decision if necessary
Be clear on the date of the end of the contract and on the time at which he must leave the company premises.
Give an overview of the departure/separation conditions
Do not overextend the meeting — the meeting should take no more than 15 minutes.

Not to do
Don’t make friendly greetings like ‘Hi, how’s it going? or ‘Pleasure to see you’”
Don’t make small talk
No humor either
Don’t defend yourself, don’t justify yourself, don’t raise your voice
Don’t threaten
Do not discuss the future of other colleagues
Don’t sympathize
Don’t try to minimize the situation
Don’t take take his reaction personally
Refrain from platitudes (no remarks like, ‘I understand what you must be feeling…’, ‘you’ll see, it will all be OK…’ , etc)

Here is what might happen on site:

Selon Peters, notre génération a le devoir de ré-imaginer nos entreprises et institutions, publiques et privées. Il explique que tout, de l’éducation des jeunes à la façon dont nous luttons contre les guerres — ou contre des ennemis insaisissables, exige la réinvention de chaque type d’organisation.

Null doute que la poursuite du développement des technologies de l’information va changer radicalement tout ce que nous savons. De la même manière, Howard Rheingold, dans son ouvrage Smart Mobs, anticipe la façon dont la technologie sans fil va permettre une nouvelle révolution sociale. Ce phénomène s’applique également à l’éducation, l’armée, la politique et aux entreprises.

Parlons de la façon dont ces changements qualitatifs affectent le secteur de la consultation. Pour les grandes entreprises, la satisfaction du client est en panne et le client “loyal” est au bord de l’infidélité constante, tellement il est bombardé par d’autres alternatives.

Peters envisage que la technologie provoquera l’extinction d’externalisation, ou même, d’une grande partie de la force de travail des cols blancs traditionnels. La situation est paradoxale: les consultants seraient à la fois condamnés par cette révolution technologique tout étant encore plus sollicités grâce à leurs services à valeur ajoutée. Nous voilà confus mais aussi rassurés!

Pour survivre en tant que membre d’un ministère ou organisme, vous devez vous transformer en une version micro de cette organisation. Vous devez devenir quelqu’un qui donne assurément de la valeur ajoutée du travail en plus de facturer ses prestations. Quel est l’impact sur les services professionnels, comme les consultants? Il leur faut encore plus re-imaginer ou réinventer mais de manière encore plus significative car tout le monde doit se mettre à re-imaginer son quotidien pour survivre professionnellement.

Peters encourage la créativité qui “exige le désordre, le non-respect des règles et la tolérance des échecs”. Il va sans dire que l’état de tension chronique au travail, une charge de travail excessive ou un sentiment d’insécurité ne dopent pas la créativité sur le long-terme mais plutôt comme une stratégie ponctuelle de survie.

Peters pense que nous allons devenir une nation de consultants. Peut-être le sommes-nous déjà! Si IBM est maintenant IBM Global Services et UPS est UPS Logistics au lieu d’un groupe de types avec des camions, c’est que tout succès découle de la valeur ajoutée de ce “capital de consultation intellectuelle”.

Alors que les gens pensent que perdre des emplois industriels au profit la Chine est un problème, Peters relève que les emplois que nous perdons dans le secteur des services est un enjeu beaucoup plus important…

Null doute que nous avons désespérément besoin d’idées, ne serait-ce que pour nous ré-inventer!

Here is another Workplace Survival Guide written by an expert employment lawyer, T J McHugh.
How to Beat Your Boss helps you understand where you really stand as an employee, and answer questions such as “I hate my boss. Should I resign?” or “Can my boss really treat me like that?” . Psychopaths in the workplace are a very real, very common and grossly underestimated phenomenon. They can be bosses or co-workers. Most victims don’t understand what is happening to them until things have gotten way out of control.

Let’s finish with a funny though cynic novel about  daily work. It is set in an advertising agency in Chicago.
Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came To The End takes a sustained interest in the idea of the working environment and its potential to alter the behaviour of the people caught up in it.

Here is an excerpt: “We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. [...] Ordinarily jobs came in and we completed them in a timely and professional manner. Sometimes fuckups did occur. Printing errors, transposed numbers.Our business was advertising and details were important. If the third number after the second hyphen in a client’s toll-free number was a six instead of an eight, and if it went to print like that, and showed up in Time magazine, no one reading the ad could call now and order today. No matter they could go to the website, we still had to eat the price of the ad. Is this boring you yet? It bored us every day.Our boredom was ongoing, a collective boredom, and it would never die because we would never die.”
As Joshua writes, “it is really irritating to work with irritating people” !

For those you prefer to watch an online workspace odysee, have a look at an original webseries The Cube Life!
You will realize that some places or colleagues can be worse than yours.

According to the study undertaken by Ernst and Young which surveyed the management at over 700 multinationals, Switzerland remains a prime choice when companies decide to relocate their activities.

Switzerland emerged more desirable than France or the United States, according to the study. The rationale behind the choices was chalked up to a stable political environment and a solid and favorable legal environment, as well as quality of life, social climate, and other factors like schools.

Switzerland took a hit, however, on its tax environment, dropping from 4th in 2007 to 11th in 2009. The study asserts that as a consequence of the dilution of banking secrecy, 23% of companies see Switzerland negatively as a potential place to invest, in contrast to 15% in 2007. 50% of companies surveyed planned to invest in Switzerland, against 74% in 2007.

In a period of recession and great economic uncertainty where many are worried about the stability of their jobs, keeping a healthy, positive attitude at work can become a challenge. And it can render the normal process of evaluating and criticizing colleagues work a minefield.

Some rules of thumb to keep in mind in an era of generalized anxiety:
Prepare your criticisms.
Clarify your ideas and isolate the nature of the behavior you seek to change in your colleague. Have you discussed this problem with your colleague before? What is the impact/seriousness of this behavior? When is the best moment to discuss it ?

Stick to the Facts.
It’s easy to get emotional and bring in personal elements that will make a smooth resolution of the problem far less likely. Be precise and detailed in your examples, try to avoid an accusatory demeanor and keep an open attitude inviting dialogue.

Enumerate Consequences.
The colleague should be explained the consequences of the behavior in question. For example, if Joe is consistently late with his work and this tardiness delays several of his colleagues who depend on his output, this should be made clear. Ascertain that this realization is shared.

Define the Change(s) you Expect.
Explain clearly what you want changed, in concrete terms.

While interpersonal skills are clearly required to effectively criticize and obtain behavioral modifications, other no less important interpersonal skills are necessary to effectively receive criticism. Many people become immediately defensive and cease to listen. One should listen carefully when one is being criticized, and –once the criticism has been formulated – question one’s interlocutor calmly to induce him to express exactly what is on his mind. Make sure you fully understand the criticism being addressed to you by reformulating it in your own words. Once clarified, you can take a clear stance vis-à-vis the criticism. Avoid taking criticisms personally as reproaches. Work is work – don’t get emotional over it.

According to interim and placement agencies, temporary work contracts have declined drastically. Many companies have been greatly reducing their headcount of temporary workers. In difficult times, the contracts of temporary workers are often not renewed, allowing companies to cut personnel without firing regular employees.

Companies have long used temporary workers as a buffer to be able to better weather the waves of financial fortune.

Currently, with plummeting orders and a recessionist economy, temp agencies are reporting a drop of nearly 30% in temporary work contracts. The index is calculated based on the number of hours the agencies are billing.

Decidedly, this is very bad news for companies such as Adecco, the world leader in temporary work, whose sales figures fell by a third in 2008.

The reductions in temporary staff began already in the middle of 2008. Companies such as Rolex have substantially cut temporary workers.

But in January the slowdown was particularly steep, some commentators say as much as 35%. The index of fixed placements decreased by roughly 25% over the same period.
Analysts see no sign of recovery for now. Temporary work is always the most vulnerable in a deteriorating economy.

The sectors most strongly affected by the decline in temporary work are mainly industry, and the exporters like the luxury watch manufacturers. Watch making is very strongly affected among the least qualified personnel, though highly qualified watch makers remain in demand.

Despite the sharp drop in temporary employment, the overall situation remains relatively positive. In Switzerland the global unemployment rate rose to 3.4% in February, while in the EU the average is 8.5% . And there remain thousands of job vacancies. Even UBS has nearly 300 open job offers on their website.

Besides cutting their temporary work force, companies are also turning to outsourcing to lower costs. Some enterprises are outsourcing their HR or parts of their IT.

According to HR consultants and specialists in the recruitment field, the new trend sweeping through management circles, snidely referred to as ‘Manager 2.0,’ is the socially adroit and diplomatic manager, who rather than managing in an authoritarian style is instead a unifier and includer, using terms like “ together, we…” rather than “I want.…”

Briefly, the passage is from strict hierarchical vertical structures to more horizontal networks. The old manager was expected to organize, direct, set objectives, communicate clearly and enforce the hierarchy. Today’s manager needs to be a coach and an inspirational force.

The new manager is expected to have or to cultivate ‘soft skills’ – relational and emotional — and to be a superb communicator and able to elicit the best from the group he manages.

Human Resources professionals say that professional skills and methodologies acquired in management schools or continuing education count for only about 50% in a successful

career. What now counts for at least the other 50% are social skills, assets of character, ethical and spiritual skills, which are difficult to teach and usually acquired in a personal manner (through one’s upbringing or early education).

Some HR experts say that the contemporary context of globalization and mobility has both flattened hierarchies and increased complexities, while the demands on managers have risen greatly. With the increasing size of the managed, the increasing competition in a global market, multicultural partners, etc., managers need to be able to coach, inspire, and give meaning to the work, as well being able to plan, anticipate and organize.
The need for strong communication skills has become paramount since to coach and inspire, one needs to be a convincing communicator.

Social Psychologists in the HR world claim that the ‘level’ expected of managers today is much higher than that of 10 years ago. And too many managers remain ‘specialists’. In the semantics of HR, this means that the managers need to rise above the details to be able to see the larger picture and give a sense of purpose to the team. To this writer, it would appear that the ‘big picture’ was always the responsibility of managerial staff.

The manager-coach of today ‘accompanies’ the team in the resolution of problems and is a facilitator, encouraging the staff and placing weight on training, experience, and staff retention.

Until recently, it was very difficult to find work after one’s mid-forties and nearly impossible to find work if one came onto the job market past the age of 50. Those who lost their jobs in their late forties or early fifties were often relegated to several years unemployment compensation and then public assistance.

Times have changed, the demography of Switzerland is moving up the age ladder and there are more and more job opportunities for seniors.

Jean-Claude Biver, the Director of Hublot is one of the big champions of hiring seniors – 12% of his company’s workforce is over 65. The arguments for hiring older workers are clear: they bring with them decades of experience. Sociologists and economists tend to agree.

The traditional reasons in Switzerland for the reluctance to hire seniors were related to the high costs in social charges that companies must pay and concerns about seniors being not flexible enough.

These concerns have been swept away in the new demographic reality of scarce qualifications, increasing life-spans, and aging populations. According to demographic projections, the EU population of working age professionals will decline 18% between 2000 and 2050, and the number of people over 65 will rise 60% at the same time. The aging of populations is a problem affecting all of the Occident.

Governments across the developed world have to find ways to maintain their economies and counter the penury of qualified labor and the skill in the marketplace.

The most successful and entrepreneurial companies in Switzerland are now trying to integrate all age groups. Managing a workforce composed of all age groups and job descriptions is a major challenge. For example, when an older worker is retiring, one needs to have already hired a young worker 8 or 9 months previously to permit a knowledge transfer. This is more difficult than it may seem as often retiring workers are not particularly inclined toward training colleagues and young colleagues are not always persuaded of usefulness of information and knowledge from an ‘out of date’ elder.

While the trend is in the process of changing, it is still the case – according to the Federal Office of Statistics – that for those over 50, the unemployment rate skyrockets. It is legal in Switzerland to stipulate an age range for job vacancy or job description. The tendency however, is turning strongly in the favor of seniors as labor shortages accentuate. Economists and government statisticians see a peak in the scarcity of qualified professionals on the job market occurring in 2015.

Geneva and Zug are important centers of trading activity in Switzerland for both raw materials and finished goods, providing a large number of jobs to professionals involved with dealing, brokerage and trading.

To meet the demand for experienced traders needed by local companies, the University of Geneva created last Spring a Masters Program in Trading, which will begin accepting students this October. The Masters in Trading will focus on trade finance, international trade, commodities and raw materials trading.

Spokesman for the program in the Economics faculty at the University of Geneva explain that Geneva is essentially a trading city. There are over 150 companies and 6000 professionals working in trading. The large number of companies involved with trading activities is remarkable in view of the current absence local opportunities for professional training.

This lack of study opportunities was remedied this month with the inauguration of the Masters in Trading Program. The faculty at the University of Geneva note that at this time only Paris, London and the East coast American universities offer this type of curriculum.

The program opened this month with 16 students, chosen from 50+ applicants, and will last 3 semesters, alternating between coursework and work experience in local companies.