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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marginmike who wrote (30035)	5/14/1999 10:13:00 AM
From: Ramsey Su	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 152472

Mike, just a general question. If Iridium eventually folds, what happens to the 60(?) some LEOS floating around? Are they now totally useless? Ramsey

To: marginmike who wrote (30035)	5/16/1999 11:25:00 AM
From: CDMQ	Respond to of 152472

It was not our intent to deliver a harsh message' Staff Writer May 16, 1999 s senior vice president of human resources, has seen the best and worst of times at the company. He presided over a massive build-up of employees earlier in the decade and was the one ultimately responsible for deciding, during the February layoffs, who would or wouldn' t be staying. For the first time, Sullivan answers questions about the largest round of job cuts -- 700, mostly full-time employees -- in the company' s 14-year history. Q: How many employees accepted the company' s offer of a bigger severance bonus and access to job outplacement services if they agreed not to sue? A: Virtually everybody. There may have been one or two who didn' t. Q: How many took advantage of those outplacement services through Drake Beam Morin? A: My guess is about 75 percent. Some preferred to be more self-reliant. There are others who wanted expert support. Q: Many former employees say they understand why Qualcomm had to cut jobs, but they are troubled that the company didn' t thank them for their services. Was that an oversight, or were there legal reasons the company didn' t express its gratitude? A: I' m a bit surprised to hear that. We did work hard to express appreciation in the one-on-one meetings. If a thank-you wasn' t delivered, it certainly should have been. These were all valued people. There were no legal or quasi-legal reasons why we couldn' t (express our gratitude). We spent quite a bit of time in training managers who would deliver this news in order to make the separation easier for employees, but also to make it clear this was a separation. It was not our intent to deliver a harsh message. We wanted to be sympathetic, compassionate ... yet be clear as to what their status was. Q: If you had to do this over again, what would you do differently? A: We received quite a bit of positive feedback, and some would have liked for it to have been handled differently. We (would) try to ID individuals who may need extra support. We' d like to come away with zero (complaints). Q: Comment on the notion that Qualcomm was hiring too fast -- when positions weren' t even available. Were you alarmed by the company' s hiring frenzy in the early and mid-90s? A: I' ve been responsible for the company' s staffing since the early ' 90s. I would not characterize our staffing to be a frenzy. There are two types of staffing. First, there' s the very traditional, specific business requirement where you search to fill a position. The second is opportunistic hiring, where you have a person with a set of skills that could be used in a variety of ways either now or in the future. That kind of hiring is strategic ... and we' ll continue to do that. Qualcomm needed to get (its mobile phone technology) to market very, very rapidly or fail. That required us to hire at a very high rate. Had we not done that, we would have failed. A frenzy it was not. It was a strategy to bring in bright people as fast as we could. Copyright 1999 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.