I purposely have not weighed in on the labour force cut backs of 30,000+ employees, of which most will be white collar, announced last week by Ford. Experts say that this might not be enough to save the big car manufacturer. Market share is significantly down and concern is growing rapidly around the strategic plan for the future. Everyone is worried.

I wanted to see how the automobile industry would perceive the move. As expected, there are pros and cons on both sides. I think this is the smartest move Ford has made in years. The other North American auto makers would be foolish not to make the same decision. Any large organization, like Ford, can easily reduce their operational expenses by 20-30% simply by reducing their staffing expense. Union and non union representatives are nervous at the possible job loss for the employees.

You’ll find a lot of fat, redundancy,  and over empowered bosses trying to protect their turf, in large organizations. Some of the inefficient companies are managed poorly due to their size, size becomes the enemy. The senior executives are so far removed from the day to day activities that they are easily led into believing that staff growth goes hand in hand with revenue growth, this could not be further from the truth. The objectives of front line managers should be to reduce expenses as the company grows, that is their main challenge and focus, not increase staffing levels to offset more work.

The most recent speculation is that Ford and General Motors are in talks to solve like problems. Companies should strive to put aside their competitive differences when it comes to resolving issues that cause them both to suffer. Even to the point of talking about mergers, if it saves the companies, employees, shareholders and customers, then they should consider all possibilities to save the organization. Leave your egos out of the boardroom and get your company back on track, only the hard decisions will save this company.