It hasn't been a good week for one of Australia's largest brand marketers, Pacific Brands.
Hot on the heels of giving themselves significant pay rises, the Pac Brands board retrenched 1850 staff. Naturally, the media was all over it.
(To be fair, Pac Brands is not the only company to axe large numbers of staff nor give its senior executives hefty increases in remuneration, but its actions have caused more public outrage than most).
The rationale provided by the company certainly wouldn't have helped matters.
The following is sourced from an article by the Australian Financial Review (Feb 27), page three. (As is Fairfax's wont, you need to be a registered subscriber to view much of the newspaper's content).
This is reportedly Pac Brands CEO Sue Morphet's response to the question 'why cut so many?':
"Greater business level empowerment and flexibility within a non-negotiable compliance framework will ensure more efficient and effective decision making."
WHAAAAT?
Communication plays a critical role in the corporate retrenchment process. Apart from communicating openly with stakeholders including workers, unions and government in the run-up to any decisions being made, the tone of language used when speaking with the media and others is absolutely critical.
Morphet is not the only senior executive to speak corporate psycho-babble that no-one understands. It's a trend, and a very bad one.
According to the Fin:
Ford did some "outbalancing" of 450 staff last year.
Citigroup expected its "near-term headcount to be down 20 per cent" when it recently cut 50,000 jobs (yes, that's 50,000 jobs).
"Starbucks looked comparatively impotent when pursuing 'operational efficiencies' to cut 685 jobs".
And so the article goes...
"Rightsizing" (job cuts)
"Investment experience" (when writing down $225 million).
"Monetisation process" (God knows what that is!).
"Management adjusted" results (WTF?).
Use of such nonsensical language frustrates all in its path - shareholders, sharemarket analysts, media and the public. It's designed to bamboozle but only succeeds in reinforcing the well-held notion that big business is extremely out of touch with 'new world' realities - no wonder trust in companies has become such an explosive issue (Check out previous blog post: Corporate Australia Cops a 'Bloody Nose' in Edelman's Latest 'Trust' Findings).
The Fin rightly applauds "old-school" Gerry Harvey who closed five Harvey Norman outlets late in 2008.
"The stores can't make money", Harvey reportedly said.
Now that's communication!
THANK GOD FOR GERRY HARVEY! (Pic Source)
