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Hertz Had Sheriffs On Hand the Day It Cut IT (computerworld.com)
dcblogs writes: About 300 Hertz IT employees, most located in Oklahoma City, are being impacted [by] a decision to expand its outsourcing to IBM. About 75 will be hired by IBM and those workers [are expected] to receive offers this week while others are facing layoffs. The news was a shock for IT employees. There was "anger, resentment," especially by employees who "sacrificed that work/life balance to keep things going here," said one employee. Hertz took precautions. On the day that IT employees learned that their work was shifting to IBM, employees noticed Oklahoma sheriff patrol vehicles in the building's parking lot. They believed plainclothes officers were inside the building.
"We consider the safety and security of our people whenever there are circumstances or events that could increase the risk of a disturbance or some form of workplace violence," said Bill Masterson, a Hertz spokesman. "Knowing that this was a difficult announcement, we had additional security on hand," said Masterson. "Going forward, Hertz IT resources will be focused on development of future products and services for customers," he said. The majority of services will be cloud-based. According to the Computerworld article, along with severance pay, benefits also include three months of outplacement assistance. IT employees can receive up to $4,000 toward retraining or skill certification, said Masterson. IBM India Private Limited, a IBM subsidiary, has filed paper for H-1B visa workers for Hertz Technology offices.
"We consider the safety and security of our people whenever there are circumstances or events that could increase the risk of a disturbance or some form of workplace violence," said Bill Masterson, a Hertz spokesman. "Knowing that this was a difficult announcement, we had additional security on hand," said Masterson. "Going forward, Hertz IT resources will be focused on development of future products and services for customers," he said. The majority of services will be cloud-based. According to the Computerworld article, along with severance pay, benefits also include three months of outplacement assistance. IT employees can receive up to $4,000 toward retraining or skill certification, said Masterson. IBM India Private Limited, a IBM subsidiary, has filed paper for H-1B visa workers for Hertz Technology offices.
At only 300 Hertz this doesn't seem to be happening with high frequency.
Outsource to IBM? They'll regret that decision very soon. Really. Very, very soon.
...that comment about "work/life balance" sacrificed. There was a great article recently about how one-sided the employee/corporate relationship really is. One side of the relationship has emotions; the other's basically a machine, a mechanism devised by stockholders to increase their investment - when it screws up and has an emotion because one of the parts (your boss) has one, that is corrected ASAP. So it's this relationship between human and machine that *cannot* give anything back, emotionally.
On the human side, people have the emotion of pride; virtually everybody is proud of their "work ethic" and most people describe themselves as "giving 100%" or "giving 110%", that extra ten percent coming out of your personal life, the time you owe to family, friends, and yourself. You have emotions where people become attached to "the team" and don't want to "let down the side" and again, make personal sacrifices not compensated for by pay, because it "just feels good" to help out a team member with a sick kid or de-stress your boss at "crunch time".
NONE of this spirit of teamwork and sacrifice applies to the other side of the relationship. All those emotional, devoted-to-work, sacrificing employees are sacrificed for in turn when their utility falls below zero.
It all represents an ongoing wage theft, in effect: employers routinely profit from the emotional investment, pride, and devotion of employees but don't return it, the way that somebody sacrificing for a primitive tribe would be taken care of in turn by that tribe if they fell sick. Smaller businesses run by owners can react like a normal human group, with a two-way emotional bond. But a modern corporation with absentee owners and professional managers is just a machine that automatically wins these situations because it is never there for the employees that were there for it.