Carat Needs a New CPO

Layoffs are never good news. Having the “talk” with your manager is not exactly what you want to do when you walk into your office. But nothing can compare to knowing about your layoff before the official announcement. I’m not even talking about gossips, rumors and crap from Valleywag here. What if you read the exact layoff memo that was meant for management only – and it was leaked directly from the Chief People Officer’s desk. Feel free to ignore the usual BS about increasing “efficiency” and “better serving clients” that every layoff letter talks about. Focus on what matters – the CPO messed up.

Here’s the talking point from the layoff letter:

“If you would like to go home today and come back tomorrow to clean out your desk or office, you are free to do so. We would like you to meet with your manager following our meeting to transition your work. We will be communicating to your team today. Your manager will be contacting clients. We ask that you do not contact your clients to discuss this situation.”

What really pisses me off – is that the CPO will probably get to keep his/her position after this morale-destructive screw up. Isn’t the job of a CPO to maintain confidentiality and order in the company? To minimize negative morale impact and improve efficiency of the workforce?

I see this mess up as more severe and deserving of “punishment” and should also be the focus of Carat to take serious action. By causing such an error, impact on employees can range from:

• employees who didn’t get laid off feel insecure about their future
• morale decreases due to inability to handle such delicate matters
• decrease in trust on the CPO to be effective as the “peoples” leader
• losses credibility as a leader
• be the #1 hated person in the company, even by those who are left behind

What do you think? Who is more deserving to get fired/laid off? The employees who have worked their asses off (some slackers should be fired anyways) for the company? Or should the CPO continue getting paid the hundreds of thousands in salary and hefty bonus next year for a job well done? My guess is that the CPO will continue getting the big bonus next year for this mess – and the laid off employees (who are making a fraction of what the CPO makes) are standing in line at the unemployment office looking for ways to make ends meet.

One thing I’d like to point out is

We ask that you do not contact your clients to discuss this situation.

It is very common that they make this request. Under normal circumstances, I would say employees getting laid off should respect this request. But in this FUBAR situation, I’d say call your clients and let them know you’re getting laid off! And especially if you’re in good relationships with the client and have been delivering excellent work – the client will get a chance to see what Carat (the company) is really all about – not the people.

Where is corporate responsibilty gone to? If you ask me – I’m 100% confident it’s burried along with social responsibility in the pits of hell.

If I’m incorrect about what a Chief People Officer should do for the company’s employees, maybe someone from Carat can help clear my misunderstanding?