Management

In recent times, big tech companies have been getting a reputation for their inability to fire their staff gracefully. Due to an economic slowdown, they have been forced to conduct massive layoffs but choose to do so in the worst possible ways.

Klarna, a fintech company, cut loose 10% of its workforce through a prerecorded video. They did not make it clear who was leaving until two days later. Another business, Better.com, fired hundreds of people in a single Zoom call accusing employees of “stealing from the company” because of low productivity.

An important study showed that members of a team who listened to rhythmic music together before carrying out a task worked more cooperatively and efficiently than groups who listened to music without a clear beat. People who listened to white noise did the worst. Why is that?

Elon Musk has ordered all employees to return to the office full-time or resign. In two leaked memos, he makes it clear that remote work will not be allowed except for "particularly exceptional contributors for whom this is impossible". These memos have been reported on news networks and Twitter feeds. The news network CNBC transcribed the first memo.

To prosper in the digital age, companies must undergo two types of digital transformation. Firstly, they need to become digitized. Secondly, they have to become digital.

Goldman Sachs has instituted a new diversity program based not on quotas but on hard data trends that uncovered why even progressive recruitment out of college hasn’t solved the problem. Women and minorities, it turned out, even when hired at the same rates as their white male counterparts, kept falling out of the pipeline. Attrition was enormous.

Vice president of Amazon Echo, Mike George, explained: "We have a thing called 'working backwards.' The first thing we do is we write a press release, ignoring every technical thing we can’t do for now. It’s our aspirations. We also write FAQs where we identify every question we would receive as if we issued the press release. We answer the question in aspirational ways too, ignoring, for the moment, the technical hurdles. In some cases we actually build things."

Yamato Transport Co. has modified its parcel delivery time slots to reduce the burden on overworked drivers handling a sharp increase in parcels.

As of Monday, the door-to-door parcel delivery firm no longer allows noon to 2 p.m. as a designated delivery time so drivers can take a lunch break.

In addition, the company replaced the latest time slot in the day of 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. with a new slot of 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. to avoid the concentration of delivery orders in the final one hour.

Amazon Japan aims to build a team of 10,000 independent couriers in the Tokyo region by 2020 to continue offering same-day delivery service without relying on major parcel delivery companies.

In April 2017, economists at LSE looked at 51 studies of pay-for-performance plans, inside of companies. Here's what they said: "We find that financial incentives can result in a negative impact on overall performance."