Losing a job is always traumatic, and that’s why stories like this one in the Chicago Tribune—titled “Are you prepared if you lose your job?”—can serve as a good jolt for anyone who thinks that they are immune from the incessant layoffs, buyouts and cutbacks that seem to be a fact of life in the modern American workplace.

What struck me about this article wasn’t the advice it offered, which was pretty straightforward and basic. What got me thinking were some of the statistics listed in the Tribune story, such as “Young workers face the prospect of changing jobs nearly nine times before they reach age 32, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, ” and that in March, “the average length of unemployment for all ages was nearly 17 weeks, [and] workers over 50 face longer job searches.”

I’ve written here before about how stressed out workers are and the very different and modern approach some are taking as they cope with layoffs. Fact is, for all the talk about a “talent shortage” or a “war for talent,” it still is very much a buyer’s market when it comes to getting and keeping a job—especially now as we head into a recession.

The Tribune story makes the point that today’s workers always need to be preparing for the worst and that “there’s little excuse these days for not being ready to kick a job search into high gear at a moment’s notice.” That’s great advice to keep in mind, because no matter whether it is called a layoff, buyout, cutback or “Productivity Transformation Program,” the stability of the job you’re in today is a tenuous illusion at best.

I’ve learned this the hard way, as I’m sure many of you have too. It’s always great to hope for the best, but you’ll be better off and sleep better at night if you also make sure to prepare for the worst, because it generally happens when you least expect it.

Chicago-based Tribune Co. has been through some rocky times over the past few years, including lots of internal squabbling and infighting. The company was bought out last year by legendary wild man Sam Zell, but alas, things haven’t gotten a whole lot better given his less-than-stellar view of the people working for him.

But, give Zell his due on one thing—he took a very aggressive approach to the health and wellness of his workforce. Under his leadership, Tribune took the “stick” approach and started the new year by charging workers $100 more per month if they were smokers. Although it was a policy originally put in place by previous Tribune management, Zell and his new management team ran with it, probably because it was a classic Zell approach to a workforce issue: aggressive, in-your-face and heavy-handed. It also made Tribune one of a small but growing group of employers that have chosen to take a punitive approach to workers who engage in a less-than-healthy lifestyle.

Well, Tribune seems to have had second thoughts on the matter.
This week, Tribune rescinded its $100 per month penalty for employees who smoke. “While well-intentioned, we think the tobacco-use fee implemented by the previous management team is inconsistent with the new culture we’re developing—we’d rather you use your own judgment when it comes to tobacco use, not impose ours upon you,” said a memo from Tribune management.

Notice the backhanded dig at Tribune’s previous management here? That’s complete BS, as far as I’m concerned. If Sam Zell has shown anything during his brief time as owner of Tribune, it is that he doesn’t feel bound by anything that previous management was doing. In fact, the opposite is true: Zell seems to revel in talking about how screwed up Tribune was/is and how different his regime is going to be.

Unfortunately, I think Tribune was on to something with the smoking policy. It is an interesting approach to a difficult problem and worthy of debate and discussion given the huge health costs that are associated with smoking.

Zell was, finally, taking a very different and groundbreaking approach to a tough problem. It’s unfortunate that he chose not to follow through. Unlike so many of the things he says and does, this one makes a little sense.

Most team-building exercises, sometimes billed as corporate retreats, have always seemed to me to be a colossal waste of time.  These are grin-and-bear-it off-sites that people have to put up with because someone high up on the food chain thought it was a good idea.

I have been through a lot of these, and it always seemed that they had little connection with the real work that people, and actual work teams, do on the job. In fact, many of them have so little to do with building a team environment that you have to wonder just why anyone would take time and spend good money to force people to go through such nonsense anyway.

So, as a critic of these supposed bonding experiences, I’m not surprised when one goes terribly wrong. Case in point: a story this week in The Washington Post titled “Team-Building or Torture? Court Will Decide.”

The details of this story are amazing. “No one really disputes that Chad Hudgens was waterboarded outside a Provo [Utah] office park last May 29, right before lunch, by his boss,” the Post story says. “There is also general agreement that Hudgens volunteered for the ‘team-building exercise,’ that he lay on his back with his head downhill, and that co-workers knelt on either side of him, pinning the young sales rep down while their supervisor poured water from a gallon jug over his nose and mouth.”

The Post story continues: “And it’s widely acknowledged that the supervisor, Joshua Christopherson, then told the assembled sales team, whose numbers had been lagging: ‘You saw how hard Chad fought for air right there. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales.’ What’s at issue in the lawsuit Hudgens filed against his former employers—just as in the ongoing global debate over the CIA’s waterboarding of terrorism suspects—is the question of intent.”

It’s a story that has to be read to be believed, but it gets to something that has always bothered me: Team-building exercises like these are more about getting people to follow along blindly—to engage in groupthink—than they are in really getting people to work as a team. A better approach might be what SAP does, bringing people from all around the company together to get to know one another, swap ideas and break down barriers to collaboration.

I’m not sure how anyone, at any company, anywhere, could possibly think that waterboarding is an appropriate team-building exercise, but that’s what groupthink can do for you. It pushes people to take leave of their senses and engage in behavior in a team setting that they wouldn’t stand for if left to think about it on their own. In other words, it’s not so much team building as it is team bullying—and bullying in any form has no place at work.

I try my best NOT to write about the newspaper business much in this blog. Part of the reason is because I was a newspaper editor for 20 years and just feel there are better things to write about. But it’s also because newspapers (specifically, newspaper owners and managers) are so screwed up that I could blog about them just about every day.

Sometimes the level of management idiocy in newspapers is so over the top that it’s hard for even me to ignore—like the dumb, demoralizing stuff coming out of the mouth of media magnate Sam Zell, or before that, the petty politics and bickering between the staff of the Los Angeles Times and its Chicago-based executives.

Those pale in comparison with this one, though: how MediaNews’ Los Angeles News Group (owned and operated by Dean Singleton) is constantly forcing many of its workers to move from office to office around Southern California, according to blogger and former L.A. MediaNews sports columnist Paul Oberjuerge.

As he puts it, “More than 100 full-time newsroom professionals have been ordered to report to a job site different than the one they were hired at. Sometimes 44 miles away. And some have been moved as many as three times in a year. All in the name of (phantom) efficiencies and all with the unstated but overt threat of do it or get out. To make this clear: Employees were hired by the Tribune or Daily Bulletin or Sun … then later told (years and years later, in some cases) their jobs now were located in another newsroom in another city, and tough luck if it causes upheaval in your life.”

If talent is as important as so many businesses say it is, well, this is not a good way to treat your people unless your real goal is something else entirely. My cynical side immediately goes there—this is just a way to wear down people you want out and get them to leave without having to pay any severance. That may be the ultimate goal, but it could also be the work of brain-dead managers who have little talent for planning or realize the consequences of their actions. Or, it could be a little bit of both.

This is a great way to demoralize a workforce, better even than Sam Zell telling some of his people that “all of you are overhead.” It is also a great candidate for next year’s Stupidus Maximus Award that I give out recognizing “the most ignorant, shortsighted and dumb workforce management practice of the year.”

I just awarded the first Stupidus Maximus Award to Circuit City “for the decision to fire 3,400 experienced salespeople, or 9 percent of its workforce, because they were making too much money, replacing them with cheaper, less-experienced personnel.” 

That was pretty bad, I thought, but the MediaNews decision to jerk around workers by continually forcing them to report to work at different places in Southern California without any real concern for what that decision is doing to their lives may actually top what Circuit City did.

Can you top this one for management idiocy? Maybe so. And if that’s the case, please let me know. I’m always looking for Stupidus Maximus nominees, so feel free to make them here as a blog comment or e-mail them to me at jhollon@workforce.com.

What would you think was going on if you heard that a company was launching a “productivity transformation program”?

This term was a new one for me, and that’s surprising since I’ve heard a lot of business speak, corporate jargon and PR-created management double talk. I bumped into the term today in The Philadelphia Inquirer’s PhillyInc blog , and guess what? A “Productivity Transformation Program” is just a euphemism—PR double talk—for layoffs and staff restructuring.

The PhillyInc blog points you to a press release from Schering-Plough Corp. that says nary a word about the 5,500 layoffs that are at the heart of the company’s “Productivity Transformation Program.” But as the blog points out, it “includes eliminating management layers, consolidating middle management, cutting travel costs, shelving some research projects, and reducing the number of factories. That’s more than just layoffs, I know. But when the goal is to produce $1.5 billion in annual savings, heads will roll. In this case, up to 10 percent of the company’s 55,000 employees.”

Why do companies feel that they have to resort to silly, incomprehensible corporate speak in an attempt to deflect attention from what they are really doing, such as seriously reducing the workforce? Do they think that anyone is so stupid as to not see what they are doing?

I don’t know about you, but I would love to hear from readers who have examples of equally amazing corporate BS. Just send it to me at jhollon@workforce.com, or add a comment to this blog. I’ll share the most over-the-top corporate double speak and euphemisms, and let all of you vote on which one you like most—the “Best Corporate BS of the Year.”