Firing Workers Isn’t Fixing Problems

Both CEOs, Edward Zander at Motorola and Jeffrey Kindler at Pfizer, of course, kept their jobs and their paychecks. According to Motorola’s latest proxy statement, Zander received a salary of $1.5 million, a $3 million bonus and $2.3 million in restricted stock in 2005.
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For this kind of money, investors — let alone the workers who are being fired — deserve something a little more imaginative as a turnaround strategy. Cutting jobs has become a reflex, not because it works especially well at fixing the real problems at companies like these but because firings produce the kind of immediate earnings improvements that help CEOs keep their jobs. Getting rid of workers, you see, lets a company forecast the kind of immediate cost savings and surging profit margins that keep shareholders from marching on the executive suite.