So, Elon Musk plans to lay off 10% of Tesla's salaried staff due to worries about the economy and has stopped hiring around the world effective immediately. Now why 10%? Surely it is not just a random number but fully analysed and scenario planned. And in my book, it is undoubtedly part of a larger strategic workforce plan. Whomever oversees SWP must make the organisation decide what roles to prioritise and that work should be completed already.
Correctly done, Tesla’s organisational capability of SWP has already prepared scenarios based on a number of assumptions and analytics, assessing skills; abilities; enthusiasm; growth mindset; future potential; as well as segments and roles based on their value to the organisation.
Having up-to-date insights on performance and behaviour of your workers is crucial for SWP because you need to be able to implement your strategy as fast as possible or you may be losing money by the hour; too often I find organisations trying to create their plans as the fire is raging around them. Having already reviewed alternative options (scenarios) and gained the insights from current workforce constellation you will be more prepared than most and can mitigate early. This will improve your bottom line; improve your EVP; and increase your organisational throughput and output.
Tesla’s focus, is presumably, to ensure that the company is not overspending and is continuing to maintain a reasonable profit with minimal overhead to keep their investors and board members happy while preparing for a potential drop in the economy. Elon Musk has stated that he will be reducing salaried headcount by 10% as the company has become overstaffed in many areas, however this does not apply to staff members on the production line building cars, battery packs or installing solar panels.
This strategy, shifting from 'administrators' to 'doers' reminds me of when I was Head of Workforce Strategy at Barclay's, over 10 years ago. One part we focused on, the 'doers' above, was for us at that time developers. Today I would have them as one of my Focus Segments.
With scenarios, you can anticipate, and it is still not too late to start. If you haven't got Strategic Workforce Planning running as a strategic Organisational Capability, now is as good a time as anytime.
And as it happens, I can probably help.
Just click on Strategic Workforce Planning support and send me a message for a no committment conversation.
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And, to get in touch with me for more conversation, advisory or if you think you can benefit from building Strategic Workforce Planning (which includes workforce planning) as an Organisational Capability, then send me a message here
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