They risk laying of RedundantHuman93, who years ago was super human according to the metrics then, and retains the most in-depth institutional knowledge from being core to the business, but on paper for this layoff and it's (holy financial crusade) metrics looks like a lesser performer because their projects are just 'part of the institution' or they are bogged down in tons of unsexy deadwood 'keep the business running tasks' at this point and uninteresting 'overhead' that 'anyone can do'. But once they let RedundantWetware93 go the company realizes the mistake and have to hire them back as a consultant at greater expense, now with zero buyin from ParasiticMeatsackConsultant93, and as they interact with many core people/departments their lack of buyin and the reason for it impacts large core groups of biologicalLoborUnits. The company is also less flexible as they now have to schedule around Deadwood93s availability. Without the 'underperformer' the company is at risk of falling out of applicable legal/industry regulation/various compliance requirements because that stuff's all invisible and 'of course someone takes care of that stuff' without thinking who catches all the little intimate details that require a proactive thinking human being. They stop paying attention to specific customer commitments/requirements/requests that are just going to be dropped now, with potential contractual lawsuits and definite loss of customer good will.
All humans are not just FutureRedundantWetwareMeatsacks that the all knowing bean counters can move around on a board. In reality business is about relationship/small detail institutional knowledge silo'd in individuals/humans proactively getting done what needs doing, many details that get poorly caught by tribal documentation systems.
If your people are truly cogs you don't have a business, you have a franchise, and anyone else can do the cookie cutter things your business is doing, and most likely better/cheaper/flashier. But for some reason HK and all these companies doing layoffs either don't understand that, or they WANT to turn their company into a generic franchise where everyone is interchangeable and lose the flexibility/capability/competency that being a business of interconnected humans gives.
All humans are not just FutureRedundantWetwareMeatsacks that the all knowing bean counters can move around on a board. In reality business is about relationship/small detail institutional knowledge silo'd in individuals/humans proactively getting done what needs doing, many details that get poorly caught by tribal documentation systems.
If your people are truly cogs you don't have a business, you have a franchise, and anyone else can do the cookie cutter things your business is doing, and most likely better/cheaper/flashier. But for some reason HK and all these companies doing layoffs either don't understand that, or they WANT to turn their company into a generic franchise where everyone is interchangeable and lose the flexibility/capability/competency that being a business of interconnected humans gives.