I’ve been watching the drama over the Trump administration’s layoffs of government employees with mixed feelings. I believe government reform and downsizing is long overdue. As a veteran of multiple corporate downsizings during my career, I’m amused at the manufactured outrage of politicians and the partisan media. But I’m disappointed at the ham-handed way the government reform effort is being implemented and communicated.
Terminating employees is never easy or pleasant. The companies I worked for were pretty good at it but still made missteps.
When I worked at Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works during several rounds of layoffs, my secretary came in one morning and said: “There’s no mail today. They laid off the mailroom.” They WHAT?? Turns out that when management cut jobs in the top wage grades, the union contract gave the displaced workers the right to “bump” workers in a lower wage tier. The mailroom kids, at the bottom of the wage scale, were certain to be replaced by employees bumping down. So a manager jumped the gun and laid off the entire mailroom force before replacements arrived.
During my three years at Western Electric, the Hawthorne Works was reduced from 16,000 employees to 11,000. Illinois Bell, where I spent most of my career, made a series of downsizing moves that significantly reduced its management force. This was part of a dramatic reorganization in a telecommunications industry that had seen little change for nearly a century.
We quickly learned that the best way to help employees cope with uncertainty was to step up communication. Illinois Bell held frequent employee town meetings and coached executives to answer questions candidly. Western Electric equipped all supervisors with confidential information and guidance to talk to their people. Employees were not pleased by the downsizing moves but were never surprised.
We’re seeing the same kind of culture shock in the federal workforce that we saw during AT&T’s divestiture of the Bell telephone companies in the 1980s. Both workforces were accustomed to a high degree of certainty and job security. Federal employees in particular were considered virtually fireproof.
Elon Musk is a genius. He’s also a jerk. That makes him the best person to root out government waste and fraud and the worst person to communicate downsizing moves to employees. Now that Trump’s cabinet members are taking office, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency needs to hand off implementation of layoffs to agency heads who actually are effective communicators. That is beginning to happen.
What’s even harder on federal employees is that the Democratic party is celebrating them as martyrs of the Great Resistance. Public officials and anti-Trump media – who rarely shed tears over layoffs in the private sector — are giving us heart-wrenching stories about laid-off employees.
They are not getting much sympathy. The majority of Americans voted to downsize the federal government. Nearly half of Americans have little or no confidence in federal civil servants and Musk’s chainsaw rampage has lots of fans. My state’s two senators and an assortment of Democrat groups have beclowned themselves on Facebook with wild claims that laying off one percent of an agency’s headcount is putting Americans in mortal danger. Their posts have drawn derisive comments.
I confess that I am tempted to mock government employees who are shocked to learn that they are no more secure than ordinary working stiffs. The news media do these people no favors when their coverage plays into the popular caricature of entitled bureaucrats.
If the DOGE layoffs are clumsy and disrespectful, the hysterical Democratic reaction is likely to make ordinary Americans resent government employees even more. Do Democrats seriously think that listening to federal employees sing protest songs on a workday will melt the hearts of Trump voters?
As much as I enjoy the Democrats’ unintended comedy, it’s time for Trump to rein in Musk — who is growing increasingly unpopular — and let his cabinet members manage their agencies’ force reductions in a deliberate, compassionate manner. This means communicating more effectively with federal employees and avoiding dumb missteps. Like laying off the mailroom.
Don’t lay off the mailroom
I’ve been watching the drama over the Trump administration’s layoffs of government employees with mixed feelings. I believe government reform and downsizing is long overdue. As a veteran of multiple corporate downsizings during my career, I’m amused at the manufactured outrage of politicians and the partisan media. But I’m disappointed at the ham-handed way the government reform effort is being implemented and communicated.
Terminating employees is never easy or pleasant. The companies I worked for were pretty good at it but still made missteps.
When I worked at Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works during several rounds of layoffs, my secretary came in one morning and said: “There’s no mail today. They laid off the mailroom.” They WHAT?? Turns out that when management cut jobs in the top wage grades, the union contract gave the displaced workers the right to “bump” workers in a lower wage tier. The mailroom kids, at the bottom of the wage scale, were certain to be replaced by employees bumping down. So a manager jumped the gun and laid off the entire mailroom force before replacements arrived.
During my three years at Western Electric, the Hawthorne Works was reduced from 16,000 employees to 11,000. Illinois Bell, where I spent most of my career, made a series of downsizing moves that significantly reduced its management force. This was part of a dramatic reorganization in a telecommunications industry that had seen little change for nearly a century.
We quickly learned that the best way to help employees cope with uncertainty was to step up communication. Illinois Bell held frequent employee town meetings and coached executives to answer questions candidly. Western Electric equipped all supervisors with confidential information and guidance to talk to their people. Employees were not pleased by the downsizing moves but were never surprised.
We’re seeing the same kind of culture shock in the federal workforce that we saw during AT&T’s divestiture of the Bell telephone companies in the 1980s. Both workforces were accustomed to a high degree of certainty and job security. Federal employees in particular were considered virtually fireproof.
Elon Musk is a genius. He’s also a jerk. That makes him the best person to root out government waste and fraud and the worst person to communicate downsizing moves to employees. Now that Trump’s cabinet members are taking office, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency needs to hand off implementation of layoffs to agency heads who actually are effective communicators. That is beginning to happen.
What’s even harder on federal employees is that the Democratic party is celebrating them as martyrs of the Great Resistance. Public officials and anti-Trump media – who rarely shed tears over layoffs in the private sector — are giving us heart-wrenching stories about laid-off employees.
They are not getting much sympathy. The majority of Americans voted to downsize the federal government. Nearly half of Americans have little or no confidence in federal civil servants and Musk’s chainsaw rampage has lots of fans. My state’s two senators and an assortment of Democrat groups have beclowned themselves on Facebook with wild claims that laying off one percent of an agency’s headcount is putting Americans in mortal danger. Their posts have drawn derisive comments.
I confess that I am tempted to mock government employees who are shocked to learn that they are no more secure than ordinary working stiffs. The news media do these people no favors when their coverage plays into the popular caricature of entitled bureaucrats.
If the DOGE layoffs are clumsy and disrespectful, the hysterical Democratic reaction is likely to make ordinary Americans resent government employees even more. Do Democrats seriously think that listening to federal employees sing protest songs on a workday will melt the hearts of Trump voters?
As much as I enjoy the Democrats’ unintended comedy, it’s time for Trump to rein in Musk — who is growing increasingly unpopular — and let his cabinet members manage their agencies’ force reductions in a deliberate, compassionate manner. This means communicating more effectively with federal employees and avoiding dumb missteps. Like laying off the mailroom.
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