雇主裁员“新三十六计”

James Evans enjoyed his job as head of human resources at a UK property company. But when that company was taken over in 2015, things changed.

詹姆斯•埃文思(James Evans)很享受自己在一家英国房地产公司的人力资源总监工作。但是当公司在2015年被收购之后，情况发生了变化。

Mr Evans (not his real name) says his new managers gave his private office to a colleague, removed his company car and excluded him from meetings.

埃文思(化名)表示，新老板们将他的私人办公室给了一位同事，收走了公司派给他的车，还不让他参加高管会议。

The 41-year-old, who eventually signed a confidentiality agreement with a pay-off to leave the company, believes his new managers did this to free his role for one of their own top executives. Because of the agreement, he does not want to give his real name.

这位41岁的人力资源总监认为这是新老板想把他赶走，从而将职位留给他们的“自己人”。埃文思最终签署了保密协议，拿了一次性补偿离开了这家公司。他由于签署了保密协议而不便透露真实姓名。

“The aim was to make me feel so undervalued and humiliated” that he would go of his own accord, he says. “It was hard to take.”

他说，“目的是让我觉得受到轻视和羞辱，从而让我自己主动离职。这让人难以接受。”

Mr Evans was likely to have been “managed out”, a process that companies sometimes turn to as an alternative to redundancy programmes and as a way of selecting those employees they would like to lose. In the UK and the US, where the process is sometimes known as “counselling out”, it involves persuading an employee that it would be in their interests to leave, often with a reasonable financial settlement thrown in.

埃文思很可能被“管理出门”(managed out)了，企业有时将其当作裁员计划的替代选择，或是让他们不想要的员工走人的一种方式。在英国和美国(美国有时称这个过程为“辅导离职”(counselling out))，它涉及说服一名雇员相信离职将符合他们的利益，往往伴随一份合理的财务补偿协议。

Employment law varies from country to country, but in England, for example, employees have a legal right not to be dismissed unfairly. Yet there are ways for employers to get rid of staff and stay within the law.

各国就业法有所不同，但在英格兰，雇员拥有不被不公平裁员的法律权利。然而，雇主有办法在不违法的前提下赶走员工。

Many business leaders believe it is a good time for organisations to become leaner, given the uncertainty companies face from political forces, such as the UK’s vote to leave the EU. A quarter of British companies said they had plans to freeze recruitment as their clients put projects on hold, according to a 2016 poll by the Institute of Directors in the UK. Just 5 per cent planned to cut jobs. In the US, some companies are scrutinising staffing levels in the face of increased healthcare insurance costs, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

许多企业老板认为，鉴于英国退欧公投等政治因素所带来的不确定性，现在是企业瘦身的好时机。英国董事学会(Institute of Directors)在2016年的一项调查中发现，四分之一的英国公司表示，它们计划冻结招聘，因为它们的客户在搁置项目。只有5%的公司计划裁员。纽约联邦储备银行(Federal Reserve Bank of New York)的一份报告显示，在美国，一些公司因面临医保成本上升而从严把握雇员编制水平。

“I am always looking for people I can manage out,” says a vice-president at the UK headquarters of a US multinational financial services company, who did not give her name because she is not authorised to speak to journalists.

美国一家跨国金融服务公司英国总部的一位副总裁表示：“我总是寻找我能管理出门的人。”她由于没有获得与记者交谈的授权而不愿透露自己的姓名。

“Redundancies are a huge hassle and we did so much of this after the financial crisis that we are not doing these big programmes any more. But profits are not great . . . If I can get my team of 300 down to 250, my boss will love me.”

“裁员非常麻烦，我们在金融危机后裁掉了很多人，因此我们不再想大规模裁员了。但利润实在不怎么样……如果我能让自己300人的团队缩减至250人，我的上司会喜欢我的。”

How can you tell if you are being managed out? Here is a guide to some of the methods employers may use.

如何分辨出自己正被“管理出门”?这里是雇主们可能使用的一些方法。

Performance improvement plans

业绩改善计划

If an employee is underperforming, managers and human resources departments often put them on improvement plans. But in a managing-out scheme designed to encourage an employee to leave, some companies use PIPs to ensure the unwanted person has little chance of redeeming themselves.

如果一个雇员业绩欠佳，经理和人力资源部门往往会把他们纳入改善计划。但在一个旨在鼓励雇员离职的管理出门计谋中，一些公司使用业绩改善计划来确保他们不想要的人没机会挽救自己。

Cynthia Shapiro, a US-based human resources director turned career coach, says this approach is common in the US.

职业发展顾问辛西娅•夏皮罗(Cynthia Shapiro)表示，这种做法在美国很普遍。夏皮罗曾经是一名常驻美国的人力资源总监。

“They’ll give you huge deadlines that you couldn’t possibly achieve then they’ll write in a file that you’re not hitting your targets, and make it look like you’re not doing your job.”

“他们会给你分配你根本不可能在规定期限内完成的工作，随后他们会在档案中说你没有完成目标，并且说得好像你没有干工作似的。”

Mike Phipps, of London consultancy Politics at Work, says similar tactics can occur in the UK. “I hear about [companies] setting unreasonable objectives they know the employee will never reach, so that it [the performance management process] has built-in failure.”

伦敦咨询公司Politics at Work的迈克•菲普斯(Mike Phipps)表示，英国公司也会使出类似手段。“我听说(有公司)制定了不合理的目标，他们知道雇员永远不可能实现目标，也就是说(业绩管理过程)内置了失败。”

He adds that employees sometimes cry foul at such processes and threaten legal action, which in turn often prompts their employers to offer financial settlements.

他补充称，雇员有时抗议此类过程纯属刁难，并威胁采取法律行动，这往往促使雇主提供财务补偿。

Peter Davis (not his real name), a UK further education lecturer, recalls being managed out in this way. He says his bosses told him: “There were two situations — either I’d leave with a pay-off and a reference, or they would put me through [a performance management process], which I would fail.”

英国继续教育讲师彼得•戴维斯(Peter Davis)(化名)回忆起自己曾被这种方式管理出门。他说，上司告诉他，有两条出路，一是让他拿上一次性补偿和推荐信走人，二是把他纳入一个肯定过不了关的业绩管理过程。

The big chill

寒心

This method involves making someone unhappy at work. It can be “the most psychologically damaging” of all ways of persuading someone to leave, says Ms Shapiro. “They do a celebratory dinner but you’re not invited, [or] you’re not invited to meetings.” The freeze can be subtle and difficult for the employee to discuss without seeming paranoid.

这种方法涉及让人们在工作中不开心。夏皮罗表示，在所有让人离职的方式中，这可能是“最让人心理受伤的”。“他们举行了庆祝晚宴，但你没有收到邀请，(或者)你也没有被邀请参加会议。”这种冷落是可能细微的，雇员要拿到台面上讨论的话，很难不被视为偏执。

Examples may include giving someone’s office rival a high-profile assignment or customer account that they would have expected to handle themselves. Karen Seward, employment partner at Allen & Overy, a law firm, says employers hope the unwanted employee will “get the message and they’ll get another job”.

比如说，给某人的办公室竞争对手分配抢眼的任务，或他们原本希望处理的客户账户。安理国际律师事务所(Allen & Overy)的就业事务合伙人卡连•苏厄德(Karen Seward)表示，雇主们希望他们不想要的雇员将会“接到信息，进而另谋高就。”

The approach can backfire if the employee threatens legal action. As in Mr Evans’s case, a financial settlement is sometimes offered in return for keeping quiet about what happened.

如果雇员威胁采取法律行动，这种做法可能产生反效果。就像埃文斯的遭遇一样，雇主有时会提供财务补偿以息事宁人。

The ‘headhunt’

“猎头”

This is possibly the most sophisticated and humane solution. Some managers ask trusted headhunters to approach an unwanted executive for a more suitable role. “It’s very flattering for the individual, but the bait could have been set by their manager,” says Mr Phipps.

这可能是最世故且有人情味的解决方案。一些经理让他们信任的猎头为其不想要的高管安排更适合的职位。菲普斯表示：“这让相关个人非常得意，但其实可能是他们的经理设下的诱饵。”

The ‘redundancy’

“裁员”

A conventional redundancy process involves removing roles that a company cannot keep. For the employee, “it is a no-fault process”, says Ms Seward.

传统的裁员过程包括消除公司无法保留的职位。苏厄德表示，对雇员来说，“这是一个无过失过程”。

Yet some employers may use the language of redundancy — such as a role being “no longer required” — to get rid of a person rather than a position. An employer may not recruit another person to that vacancy immediately, but may do so eventually, perhaps giving it a different title.

然而，一些雇主可能会使用裁员的语言——比如“不再需要”某个职位——来解雇某人，而不是取消职位。雇主可能不会立即招聘另一人填补空缺，但最终会招人，或者给这个职位起个新名。

Employees who believe they were made redundant in this way may not find legal recourse easy.

认为自己被以这种方式解雇的雇员发现，诉诸法律并不容易。

William Dawson, head of the senior executive practice at Farrer & Co, a UK law firm, says a British employee would need a “smoking gun” to prove that the company’s decision was unfair, such as an email stating the redundancy was designed to remove them, not their role.

英国律所Farrer & Co的高管事务主管威廉•道森(William Dawson)表示，英国雇员将需要“确凿证据”证明公司的决定是不公平的，比如一份电子邮件宣告裁员的目的是赶走他们，而非取消他们的职位。

The protected conversation

受保护的谈话

In the UK since 2013, employment legislation has allowed managers to hold “protected conversations” with staff that can lead to departures without a risk of a claim for unfair dismissal.

在英国，自2013年以来，就业法律允许经理们与员工举行“受保护的谈话”，这可以让公司在不用担心遭受不公平指控的情况下裁员。

“Those conversations are increasingly used as a convenient and informal mechanism of managing people out,” Ms Seward says. “Managers will say things like, ‘We could adopt a formal process, but we’d rather treat you with a bit more respect.’”

苏厄德表示：“那些谈话日益被用作管理人们出门的便利和非正式机制。经理们会说这样的话，‘我们可以走一个正式的过程，但我们宁愿对你更尊重一些。’”

The employee does not have to agree, Ms Seward says. But they tend to receive a payout. Unfair as this may be, it is hard to stay where you are not welcome.

苏厄德说，雇员并不是非要同意。但他们往往得到补偿。尽管这可能不公平，但你很难继续呆在不受欢迎的地方。