Daimler is using the coronavirus crisis to expand and accelerate mass layoffs. The reduction of 10,000 jobs announced months ago is to be extended and accelerated.
Finance daily Handelsblatt now reports of 15,000 planned layoffs.
To suppress the expected resistance of the workforce, department heads and other managers are being trained to put pressure on individual workers to sign a termination agreement or—as it is officially called—to “implement the job cuts as smoothly as possible”.
The Stuttgarter Nachrichten reports on an internal Daimler letter, which calls on executives to “make the separation intentions unmistakably clear and leave no room for negotiations.” Exit interviews should be completed within 15 minutes, at the latest within 30 minutes, the company writes.
In special training sessions, Daimler managers are being prepared for the possible reactions of those employees affected. In the past, management had demagogically invoked the “Daimler family” at works meetings, declaring “We are all Daimler,” Now, its management cadre is being trained to implement mass dismissals in an ice-cold manner.
Any kind of sympathy, pity or solidarity is to be suppressed from the outset. The Stuttgarter Nachrichten quote from the letter, which provides the supporting argumentation and prepares executives for dramatic scenes. As examples, objections are listed, such as: “My wife/husband is seriously ill,” “You have always had it in for me.” “Now I am supposed to take the blame for what the management has screwed up” and “Are you crazy? Right now? In these uncertain times?”
As a precautionary measure, the company has also announced layoffs in management, so every manager knows that only those who are prepared to implement job cuts with all their rigour and brutality will keep their positions.
Daimler had the “guidelines” for the exit interviews drawn up by the Düsseldorf-based personnel consultancy Von Rundstedt and Partner, which specializes in this type of consulting for mass dismissals.
Exit interviews should be conducted in person and not via online means, they stipulate. At the beginning, the necessity and inevitability of job cuts should be discussed. “The situation is very critical throughout the company,” is one of the talking points. The coronavirus crisis is hitting Daimler in a phase “in which we are facing economic challenges anyway,” writes Chairman of the Board Ola Källenius in the introduction to the preparatory seminars.
Those who are being “screened out” should be prevented from applying for other positions in the company. The guidelines recommend the following wording for this: “I therefore recommend that you concentrate your search on a new position outside the company.” Or, “Before a decision was made on the separation, we checked out possibilities to employ you further. Unfortunately, the situation throughout the company is extremely critical right now.”
According to the guide, managers must refrain from small talk and pronounce the bad news in the first three sentences, choosing clear words such as “termination” or “separation.”
If in the exit interview the employee says that his or her existence is threatened, the manager should answer, “That is why we would like to assure you with a severance payment for a transitional period and support you in your search for a new job.” ■
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