Healing the Wounds: Overcoming the Trauma of Layoffs and Revitalizing Downsized Organizations

2.1. From Assets to Costs: The New View of Employees

Perhaps the clearest evidence of the paradigm shift is that organizations that used to perceive people as long-term assets to be nurtured and developed now see people as short-term costs to be reduced. This basic change has a radical impact on the staffing and development cycle of hiring, training, career planning, and succession planning. Even more important, it represents a fundamental shift in the psychological covenant between the organization and the individual. Under the values of the old contract, employees in most large business, military, government, and religious hierarchies were perceived as assets to be nurtured and grown over the long term, often through organizational training ...