IBM Corp has further adulterated its battered no lay-offs policy by handing the decision on whether the company needed to shed staff over to the managers of its 13 business units, but has added a negative that seems to inhibit necessary change. The company acknowledged the move, but said it was mostly symbolic and denied that the action clears the way for IBM’s first lay-offs in more than four decades. If an IBM manager needs to cut staff, those people won’t automatically be given jobs elsewhere in the company. Essentially, says Dow Jones & Co, the policy passes the buck to managers. But if those managers can’t find alternatives to lay-offs, a high-ranking source said, they will in turn be fired for failing to live up to IBM’s full-employment ideal – damned if you don’t cut, twice damned if you do cut, it seems. The company insisted that the policy change does not make lay-offs any more or any less likely: unit executives will still have to clear any lay-offs with IBM’s four-man management committee, where they are likely to meet with heavy scepticism that a cut really is essential.
