Question

19. You are a section manager with 60 employees under you. You do not consider any of them below aver- age, Some have been with the firm a long time. Others are recent hires, either women or minority employees, engaged in an attempt to rectify past dis- criminatory hiring practices. You have just received a directive that due to financial difficulties you (and all other section managers) must cut your section by 10 percent. How do you go about deciding a morally justifiable way to implement this directive?

Answer 1

The best way to implement the directive of 10% cut of manpower in my department would include following methods:
- Redeployment or horizontal movement: Will try to move people to different functional departments, keeping in view the requirements in the given departments
- Fewer Budgeting Hours or days: Implementing cost-cutting measures such as overtime restrictions, a few days plant shutdown and voluntary leave clearance, this activity can help the company to avoid laying off permanent staff.
- Flexible work schedule and wage system: Reorganizing the work schedule for the employees’ work from a five-day work week to a four-day work week during low business seasons.
- Staff training during downtime: We can plan a series of courses to send the staff for training almost every day during the shutdown.
- Top management taking a pay cut: Straight pay cut in the department-wide exercises, and aligning the pays with the average number of hours worked.