A search for a new corporate identity may be a major result of the storm of layoffs rocking the telecom world as the majority of the victims are long-term employees who implanted the corporate cultures of the companies through the past few decades.
“Nobody knows what the new Nortel or Lucent or Motorola is going to be,” said Al Katz, the chief operating officer of Wireless Resumes.com. “The companies are losing focus as they do not know what line of products to follow. Technology is driving the companies faster than they expected.”
Analysts have identified the losses as institutional memory, succession process, crucial training tips, work ethic, loyalty and experience as the companies are inspired by return on investment and fear of mistakes.
“There are going to be mistakes made,” said Katz.
“They have lost tons of knowledge and experience,” remarked Riyad Said, an analyst with investment company Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. Inc. “The companies are looking to balance cost and youth with experience.”
Not all agree.
“It is a trade-off,” commented Bob White, president of Pennington Consulting. “They will lose knowledge, but the people they gained will be far more competitive or entrepreneurial in dealing with the market as it is today.”
Katz said the intuitive and dynamic work culture of the past has yielded ground to an “almost robotical’ one with e-mails and data-oriented mindset replacing human interaction.
“They are losing the touch of talking to customers,” said Katz.
He also noted that the new breed of workers is not willing to devote all their energies and time to the job, noting that they want control of their time and to assert their independence.
“The new graduate wants everything given to them instead of the reward of doing good,” he remarked.
Kate Christensen, president of KCEP, said an important part of the changing work ethic is the unwillingness by the new breed staff to share knowledge so “they won’t be laid off.”
She said employees are unwilling to contribute to company database and that puts a damper on the capacity to manage knowledge.
“An aura of fear has surrounded the workers and people are unwilling to share information and everyone is looking out for themselves,” she said, referring to the wave of layoffs that have affected workers with between 25 and 35 years of experience.
She also observed that as the more experienced workers leave, “there is a lot of knowledge not documented in the process such as ways to resolve problems or work around issues.”
“People learn most from the passing of information verbally,” she said, adding that this puts more pressure on the training programs for certain aspects of their products, technology, business processes and procedures.
“Once the knowledge goes out the door,” she remarked, “you can’t easily replace it,” adding that most of the companies did not plan well ahead of the layoffs.
She said part of the problem with the layoffs are the intangibles that cannot be documented but which boost the efficiency and psychology of the workers.
Katz identifies dress codes as one of the changing elements of the new worker, which is not restricted to the industry.
He said the old tradition of white shirt, black tie and a hat have become passe. “Now, you can run around in jeans and shorts,” he said.
White said the old work ethic, especially those associated with the Bell companies, needed to be tweaked to adapt to the changing times. He said companies like Motorola and Ericsson have no monopoly and the rounds of layoffs there may drive them to be more competitive.
Katz said some of the older employees who left the bigger companies have been able to energize start-ups with their expertise, while some others who were not used to accountability have failed. Still others have gone back to school, he noted.
