You cannot pick up a news story without hearing about another company who is reducing jobs, exercising layoffs, mandating furloughs or cutting heads.
It’s the cutting of heads that gives me the chills. Any company that is referring to these acts of releasing employees as “cutting heads” is being in-humane to the human resource. Think about the words they are using when they say people are – head count. How can we refer to people, real people as heads? In Medieval times talking in heads meant death. “off with their heads”, “heads will roll”. The death penalty was often times by Guillotine – literally cutting someone’s head off. This is sure dismemberment of the human spirit in our corporations.
I read a recent article about one CEO at Beth Israel hospital in MA who chose not to reduce head count as a cost saving measure, he instead chose to go out and ask the “people” what the organization should do to reduce costs and save money. …… what a novel idea, ask the people whom the decisions would affect the most, what to do. How creative! Is this some anointed CEO who one day woke up with a conscience, no, it is a leader who knows that CEO does not always translate into Chief Executive Officer. Sometimes it stands for Chief Empowerment Officer, or Chief Evangelist – of the people.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/19/sparing_450_jobs_at_beth_israel/

CEO’s are surely getting quite a bit of attention in the media these days, and I predict, in the near future, when companies begin to heal and start the hire or rehire phase again these organizations will be judged by their actions. They will have to answer for the choices they have made and they will be questioned by employees returning to the work environment and by new employees who are considering their employ. I can only hope more executives start thinking with their hearts, not only their “heads”.