For your layoff scenario, I am old school, newest out first as long as job performance is equal.
I fought HARD, won but probably hurt my own career to save an old worker like you described. He couldn't pack but could run the tape machine faster and better than anyone else. He could barely walk, used a cane but always kept up while most others couldn't. He only worked for the health insurance because his wife had a lot of issues.
They wanted to cut him because he'd been there a long time and was one of the highest paid hourly workers. I said no way. Then they said because he was in the packing department, he had to pack at least "X" hours a week and make rate. It was a veiled way to set him up for failure. When my manager would go to lunch, I had my fastest packer pack under the other guy's login. (Our reports only showed daily, weekly and monthly rates, no hourly). I also diverted "good" orders to him that made it easier to make rate. No one complained because they knew why. Interestingly, while he was packing instead of taping, the taping station would back up and I pointed that out to management. They finally relented and backed off.
That guy ALWAYS showed up for work too. Sadly, he passed in his sleep about 6 months later. We had a hard time replacing him.
As for inefficiency for the sake of humanity, it just depends on your focus I guess. What about shareholders, competition etc? That leads to higher prices, inflation etc.
I think the same thing can be done in different ways. How about Germany? Give more vacation/off time and have a rotating staff so the job is getting done, more people have jobs and a better balanced life? The only issue is it assumes all workers are equal in productivity and reliability. In reality that is rarely the case. |
