Conference 7.286::digital

    Marge
    		it's difficult to say what I'd be prepared to do, in
    detail, but I would support the retraining (a.k.a. re-skilling) of
    folks whose jobs have disappeared - because the other possibility is
    that they are laid off.
    
    Have you examples?
    
    Andy

	It is important to remember some of the goals of the corporation in 
this instance. If you look at the past (I've been here 10 years) Digital 
strives to help employees re-train themselves for new jobs. When we were 
doing poorly in the early 1980's, Digitial did not lay off people, they 
instituted a salary freeze. Everyone kept their jobs. The manufacturing 
sector of Digital has changed dramatically and we didn't fire those people 
because their jobs "disappeared out from under them". 

	It is the responsibility of the management involved to use the 
resources of the corporation to help these people find new roles in the 
corporation and continue contributing to the bottom line. You have a 
responsibility to constructively use the open door policy to let your 
management know that they should be doing this if they aren't. Explain that 
the bottom line is being affected by these people not being able to 
contribute and find out if YOU can help in re-training these people. 

	After this it becomes the responsibility of the affected employee to 
engage in these re-training efforts. Digital should not be expected to pay 
people who are not trying to do a job. If they are currently un-directed due 
to the changes which are occurring, everyone, management, employee, and 
co-workers must be involved. Our industry and our competition are changing, 
improving, and inventing products which change what we sell and how we sell 
it every single day.

	I am an un-abashed "Digital person". I like "my" company. If I see 
something wrong or it needs fixing, I tell my management. Sometimes they 
ignore me, agree with me, or we discuss it and come to a concensus. Stand up 
and be counted, don't be a couch potato, get involved.

    re .2:  Let's assume all these right things were happening, and it
    would be some time before these people could be productive again, what
    would you personally be willing to sacrifice, if anything, to keep them
    afloat?
    
    re .1:  I have some ideas, but I'd rather hear others'.
    
    Marge

    Well, I'd be willing to help in the retraining process, say one or two
    evenings a week.
    
    andy

>    Well, I'd be willing to help in the retraining process, say one or two
>    evenings a week.

	I agree with Andy, I would volunteer my personal time.

    I have to take issue with the tenor of the base note.  If you accept,
    as is the trend nowadays, that training and further education of
    employees is a normal cost of doing long term business then the
    question of 'is it a burden?' shouldn't arise.  If, through no personal
    fault, a person's job dissappears and that person is willing to
    be trained for another area, then where is the basic difference
    between that and 'normal' training?  Why is it a burden?

    The burden is that shared by Digital employees with jobs to do to
    ensure that their brethren whose jobs have become redundant are not
    laid off.
    
    Andy

    correct.
    
    thanks, andy...
    m
    

    
    I think the question which was asked by .6, means that not only should
    Digital reserve the sufficient time for the trainee, but similar time
    should be allocated to the trainer. 
    
    The question is should Digital EXPECT/REQUIRE Andys and Marges of the
    organization to DONATE their two evenings to Digital? 
    
    - Vikas

    I don't think we're talking about what Digital expects or requires
    here. We're talking about people coming forward with suggestions about
    what they, personally, might be willing to sacrifice.  There's no
    question that the corporation owns a large piece of resettling folks.
    The corporation also owes a debt to the stockholders which may mean the
    right thing to do for them is to let these folks go.
    
    Given the current financial picture in the industry, to what extent
    should we as employees who are still fully employed share that burden?  
    How creative can we be?  I look at these folks who have been carrying
    "tool kits" for years or who have been the backbone of the manufacturing
    operation, and they don't have jobs.  The corporation can simply cut
    them loose or they can launch a massive retraining operation.  This
    costs money, money the company can ill afford just now as I read it. 
    Where do we fit in, those of us whose jobs are not currently at risk?
    
    Marge
    
    

>The corporation can simply cut them loose or they can launch a massive
>retraining operation.  This costs money, money the company can ill afford
>just now as I read it. Where do we fit in, those of us whose jobs are not
>currently at risk? 

	I don't think the company can "ill afford" this. Digital is known as 
a company that when you get a job, it will do everything to help you keep a 
job. Digital become responsible for maintaining the community and the people 
that live in it. It is stated in our corporate goals that Digital is more 
than just a place to work. This is born out by our active charity work, 
matching gifts, etc. We also gain respect in the financial community by 
re-training our workers. It costs money to fire people. Our unemployment 
insurance charges would go up, and when business turns up we would need to 
hire again to fill our needs. 

	We have never said there won't be layoffs. You have to remember what 
Ken has said in the past. "When a company has to have a layoff, it's most 
often the management's fault. So at least for a while we should take the 
licking, not the employees." 

	At this point, the only think I see at risk is a regular salary 
increase. Digital will make $1 billion dollars profit this year. I believe 
that this gives us some leeway to re-train current employees for new 
positions. Re-training employees is an investement just like building new 
products. You make investments for the long term and that is the kind of 
company Digital is, we are in it for the LONG haul, not for short term 
profits.

    Training is a very expensive part of employee development.  It's been
    said a new employee takes uipwards of a year to become fully
    productive.  A current Digital employee is familiar with the company,
    its policies and procedures, department protocol, and work tools
    (hardware and software). That knowledge took time to acquire, and it
    has value. Given the choice of retraining that employee for a new job,
    or hiring an external candidate and training that person on Digital,
    its policies and procedures, department protocol, and work tools, I
    think it's more efficient to retool the current employee.  If the
    external candidate must be trained in the JOB as well, retooling
    existing employees becomes a big win for the corporation.

    That's the bottom-line argument.  The humanistic argument is also
    compelling.  If you don't help to retrain them, will they help to
    retrain YOU if and when your time comes?
    
    Given that, I am willing to invest some of my time in training people
    in new technologies, tools, or whatever I can help with.  I have
    always done so.

    It isn't clear too me what is the base note asking:
    
    1) Will I help on retraining people?
    
    2) What will be the burden to other  employees if the company decides
    on  more  extreme  alternatives  like  lay-offs  or  early  retirment
    programs?
    
    3) Other
    
    I think it needs to be more specific.
    
    /Octavio

It seems to me that DEC should study the problem and then say: this is what
needs to happen, and this is what we need from our employees in order to make
that happen.  It's a Digital-wide problem, and individual employees shouldn't
have to try to solve it from their own limited perpective.

If need be I could help with training (preferably on-the-job training, i.e.
assign additional people to the project I'm working on, ignoring headcount
limits) or even accept a smaller raise (as long as *everyone*, including
management, also got a smaller than usual raise), but I'm not going to
volunteer to make these sacrifices.  DEC has to ask.

				-- Bob

re .12:

>    Training is a very expensive part of employee development.  

You left out "can be", effective training can also be cheap.

>It's been said a new employee takes upwards of a year to become fully
>productive.  

Again, too general, some are productive from week 1, others never...

Dave.

    I think that we all agree that it is worthwile retraining employees
    who are eager and willing to fill another spots.  It's another thing
    to support someone who is spending a lot of time deciding on what they
    will *tolerate* as their next job.
    
    Maybe someone like Personnel should evaluate the employee and decide
    wether retraining would be profitable for both DEC and the employee.
    
    DEC is a great place to work, but it is a place to WORK!  If it
    was my job that went away (and that day may come), I would
    aggressively pursue retraining in another area of interest.  If
    DEC put a time limit on this retraining phase, with intention of
    letting me go if the time limit ran out, I would understand DEC's
    position in not wanting to support *dead weight*.  If the employee
    couldn't find another position within DEC that was interesting, then
    maybe a parting of ways would be better for both parties.  
    
    I've got a friend who just got laid off from a high tech company
    because the work just wasn't there anymore.  No offers of retrainning,
    no latent periods of support, just a pink slip and a "thank you".
    DEC's offer to retrain employees and support them during the transition
    period is, I think, very generous and a policy that I strongly support
    provided that it is not abused.
    
    

    I think .16 said it well. 
    
    I'm all for making investments in people who want to become productive.
    I think a lot of people who aren't currently productive genuinely
    want to change their situation. They aggressively pursue jobs they
    think they're qualified for, look into re-training opportunities,
    and take other actions to get back into the mainstream.
    
    I have also seen the other side of the coin. There are a few who
    are sitting on their hands waiting for Digital to solve all their
    problems like "we owe them". Comments I have heard that have come
    from people who are interviewing for new assignments include:
    
    	"Is this job in Orlando? 'Cause if it isn't, we're wasting our
    	time here."
        
    	"What level is this job? The reason I'm asking is there's no
    	way I'm taking a lateral."
    
    	"I hope you're planning on raising my salary 5% if I take this
    	job. The state I'm in now doesn't have any income tax, and I'll
    	lose 5% in taxes by taking a job here."
    
    I think you get the drift. I hate to second-guess anyone's real
    intentions, but I have to admit that the comments above seem to
    indicate that the people that made them have other things on their
    minds besides getting a new job ASAP. Nobody wants to see a good
    employee get pushed into an assignment or location that they are not
    going to be happy with, but sometimes I think we have some real
    primadonnas in our company. 
       
    I sometimes wonder what the same people would say if they were being
    interviewed under the conditions of "You have 60 days to find a new
    job. If you don't have one by then, your paycheck is cut to 85% of your
    current salary. At the end of 120 days, it goes down to 60% and after 6
    months, your paycheck stops." 
                                                                   
    This may sound cold, but when you compare it to other companies who
    would just put the pink slip on your desk and say "thanks", it doesn't
    look so bad. The only concern I would have with this sort of procedure
    is that it doesn't protect the highly motivated employee who is
    actively pursuing a new job and is just not coming up with a match.
    
    We may not like it, but I think the day is rapidly approaching where
    we won't have the luxury of retraining and redeploying everybody
    on the payroll whose job has been eliminated. We'll have to make
    choices between the people who are interested in a career with Digital
    and those who are interested in collecting a paycheck.
    
    /se    
                                                          
    Having been in the position of needing to find a job within DEC
    before, I can sympathize with anyone in that position. 
                                                 
    

    RE:.17

>    	"I hope you're planning on raising my salary 5% if I take this
>    	job. The state I'm in now doesn't have any income tax, and I'll
>    	lose 5% in taxes by taking a job here."

    While I generally agree with your comments, I have a problem with the
    above example.  While you have used an aggressive statement, I think
    that the point should looking at.  As an example, I would be very hard
    pressed to move to Massachusetts without an increase in pay if that was
    the location of the new job.  I believe that financial considerations
    have to have a place in any decision about a new job and that both
    parties MUST be aware of the issue.

    Lee G. who_once_turned_down_a_job_in_NJ_for_just_this_reason

Re: .18

By the same token, if I transferred to a job in New Hampshire I should expect
to get a 5% salary decrease, right?

				-- Bob

        RE: .17, .18, .19 -- Bob, while you're making light of the
        situation, you've got to consider the reality.  Depending on the
        locations involved, a person currently living in New Hampshire who
        takes a new job in Massachusetts may not have the option of being
        relocated to Massachusetts, especially if they live close to the
        border and the new job is in a facility close to the border.  So
        while it's easy (and glib) to joke about it, it's a real bite in
        someone's pay to be taxed in two states.  (Even if they could get
        Digital paid relocation, they might not want it.) 
        
        Many people forget that people who live in New Hampshire and work
        in Massachusetts pay all their New Hampshire taxes and get taxed
        in Massachusetts, as well, at the same rate as a Massachusetts
        resident (who doesn't pay any New Hampshire taxes).  This is not
        an unreasonable thing for a New Hampshire resident to consider
        when taking a job in Massachusetts.  (I can't speak for the case
        of a Vermont resident considering a job with Digital in western
        Massachusetts or upper New York State, but I suspect that a
        similar situation may apply.) 
        
        Now, perhaps we can drop this tangent, which is an area where each
        person has to weigh the facts and make a personal decision. 
        
        The other matters raised by Steve Early's reply are relevant, and
        deserve consideration. 
        
        Tom

    RE: .17, .18, .19, .20
    
    Could we keep the political discussion out of this conference?
    
    Thanks,
    - Vikas

    re .22:
    well said...
    
    Marge