In our last post, we suggested the creation of 6 lists to help identify employees who must be retained. The next actions listed below are directed to companies with truly global IT staffs.
Cutting Enterprise IT staff in fully global enterprises.
A) Cut whole groups according to performance without regard to location
A dirty secret is that the development group in the EU, Japan, or the Middle East might be better than the “HQ” group. If true, cut the dollars in the lowest-performing group. Salvage the top performers to work in other groups that will also be cut.
B) Decentralize functions like never before
The principal of key worker/backup doesn’t mean they’re necessarily even on the same continent. 24x7 operations can be supported locally with ‘remote’ surge capacity.
C) Value brainpower and competence, not language.
Enterprises need brainpower and competence. Teams need to communicate. In most workplaces that is English. In a truly global enterprise, the top performing network security analyst’s English is their second—or third language, not to mention the expert on process controls from East Asia.
D) Spending is local, and profits might not be – Consult with the CFO
CFOs in major enterprises may wish to spend money in foreign domiciles rather than the onshore HQ. Understand that dollars – literally – may be not be what the CFO wants to spend. ‘Somewhere else’ may be the place where the new hybrid cloud, global network operations center, or new applications’ development are located. Top performers and managers may be local top performers outside HQ. Ask, as CFOs may have a more nuanced view of where and how much they want cut.
High cost locations may be HQs where expensive managers live. Cutting the HQ-team may be the smart thing to do.
Hint: Have you asked the best middle managers what to cut? -- you might be surprised (or not).
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