A memo to all Dell employee from CEO Michael Dell asks workers to consider taking up to five days of unpaid time off to help prevent more layoffs. It’s the beleaguered PC box assembler’s latest effort to squeeze blood from a stone.
The Austin Business Journal reports, “According to spokesman David Frink, the memo from CEO Michael Dell says the new program calls for a temporary companywide hiring freeze, the elimination of contract employees, severance packages to those who depart voluntarily, and a voluntary furlough of one to five days. The memo also states that more layoffs may be necessary if the other elements of the program do not achieve enough cost savings. Frink declined to say how much money the company hopes to save via the program.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “CheekyGit” for the heads up.]
Looks like Mikey’s going to have to make due with fewer painted craptop lids. But, what about Enderle’s yes-man, er… “consultant” fees? Hey, maybe Mikey can make it all up in volume? 
Spork “But they won’t be because CEOs and ‘upper management’ pay them selves way to much.”
I like Steve Jobs answer: believe in your company, take a symbolic $1 a year salary, and earn your pay by growing your company’s net worth and get your pay with options.
Would you agree with that System, Spork, or do you think that executives should get low pay regardless of their performance?
how about the novel concept of slashing executive compensation?
It just goes to shows you why manufacturing is going to China: Americans just don’t appreciate, fine, high-quality, American-designed, premium-label products like Dell any more.
Yeah, I’m joking.
to several of you guys. Wouldn’t it be sad/fitting if corporate greed were directly responsible for Dell’s undoing? So much for that everyman image they used to push on us with the Dell Dude. If they were truly honorable, when the time came to dissolve the company they would make SURE their employees were all taken care of. Anyone that has stuck with this crappy-ass company through years deserves something back. Man, it ain’t right.
@some choice
At some companies like one that I worked for from 1987 to 2001 we were given no warning . Many of us that watch the company grow from $10M to $1.4B were summarily dismissed as our jobs were outsourced. These people still have a job, albeit with a slight pay cut. They still have their benefits and the ability to move to another company in the industry or in their specialty. Although I received 6 months severance and had 280 hours of vacation time comming, I could not find a job in my field and had to temporarily change careers at a hugely reduced salary. In 2003 I started driving for a car service and living off tips.
Unable to keep up my mortgage payments I eventually had to sell my house which I had owned since 1986. I have since studied and go my PE license and only within the last 8 months started regaining my earning power at the point I had in 2001. So yes these people have ooptions I was not afforded. One to Five day furlough is less than a 2% reduction in salary. If Mike Dell has any conscience he and his execs will take at least a 5% pay cut and no bonuses. It’s easier to find another position from a company you’re still working for than from a Placement firm . I kniow this from personal experience.
Believe me things could be and may get a lot worse for them. The hand writing is on the wall. They can either take notice or get thrown out with the trash. As one who was buried under the garbage heap for 5 years before regaining my earning power I can say from personal experience, they have better choices than I did.
Is Enderle one of the contract employees to be cut?
Hey Mikey! How about taking one for the team? You could start by cutting your salary and those of your board of directors by 50%.
The guy at the top has the luxury of shitting on everyone below.
Welcome to the corporate world.
Although at WELL MANAGED businesses, executive compensation reflects the company’s performance. And I don’t mean eight-figure bonuses on top of equally large salaries either…
In a perfect world, when a company needs to trim back, the brass gets trimmed as well. Unfortunately the world is not perfect.
Man, pretty much everything about that blows. I sincerely hope things are on the up and up for you again.
Yeah pretty much. I have an outsource proof position in a growth industry and more employment opportunities than I have available hours in the day. These days jobs come looking for me. Back in 1998 Dell raided that company I used to work for and took a lot of young talent and made executives out of most of them and junior execs out of the rest. I hope they all land on their feet. The company I used to work for has been taken over by Motorola and is one of their few bright spots. As a mater of fact they manufacture the scanning palm pilots used in Apple stores for POS. If you’re diligent what goes around comes around.
Oh don’t worry Dell. With America’s greatest best God Damned thing since ice cream “Hussein Obama” you will be entitled to others wealth. Like Apple’s. Way to go Steve P Jobs
@Noodle-Armed Choir Boy
Just because someone chooses to use the name ‘Randian’ as a pseudonym doesn’t imply that they accurately represent the philosophy of their namesake. Ayn Rand was an advocate of voluntary cooperation, it is her leftist critics who have attempted to equate opposition to involuntary controls and forcible ‘cooperation’ with opposition to cooperation as such. Just for the sake of balance however I should point out, that were human beings (uniquely rational and volitional animals) to take their cue from the sort of creatures you recommend, wolves live in brutal social hierarchies that systematically abuse and torment those of lower social status, while lions regularly kill the offspring of competing males and live parasitically off the lionesses, Jack Jumper ants are both deadly to humans and solitary, mutually hostile insects. It is the degree to which human behavior is governed by reason, not cooperation that predicts positive outcomes individually and societally.
Here’s an idea Mikey, how about asking people to take permanent vacation and give the money back to investors.
It’s Occam’s Razor Stupid! Micheal Dell You should have exercised Occam’s Razor before spending so much money trying to create a rival to iTunes and the iPod.
I sympathise with all his employees of whom have worked very hard to provide computers aimed at all levels of financial ability, I do not sympathise with him because his decision making has been seriously flawed of late now that Dell’s salad days are indeed gone.
Well
Given that Dell only MFG’s and doesn’t do the software side, they are severely hamstrung. As Steve said, it’s always been about the software. Dell is in a tough spot and I don’t see how they innovate out, because they aren’t an innovative company, and don’t make the innovative products they package. If they want to get into that game now, it’s a bet the company move, and they have to hit 10 out of 10.
Thank you for commenting on Noodle-Armed’s comment regarding Ayn Rand. I don’t know that the OP was truly making a statement about Rand’s philosophy or not, but if so, it was sorely off the mark.
Hey,
here’s another idea, kill H1B and H2B Visas.
Lots of people are loosing their jobs while we have hundreds of thousands of HxB workers.
Here in the Triangle, companies like Cisco, IBM, Credit Swiss, are flooded with Indians, IT departments and surrounding neighborhoods look like Bombay.
It’s time to clean up this mess and send them home.
Instead of paying OUR workers unemployment, how about paying for their training in another field and giving them jobs that are currently occupied by HxB visa workers?
I work with Indians and I see what’s going on, it’s disgusting.
This brings me to another issue: Newborn should get nationality of his mother, not automatic US citizenship.
Dell has to provide the tech support for Microsoft’s software problems. That is their biggest expense. It’s eating them alive.
Once Microsoft has killed off all of their major manufacturers with their shoddy software, where will their 95% market share be then?
CEO Mr. Dell should work for his company for now without pay, at least until a turnaround happens. I feel sorry for those employees, as many others have said, because they are just ordinary people like ourselves trying to do their jobs as asked. I am not saying layoffs and voluntary off time shouldn’t be effected, but Dell should also do the same.
I imagine Mr. Dell’s pocketbook could handle his working for free for 6 months until they get through some restructuring.
Dell: “We loose money on every deal, but we make it up in volume.”
@Chaz
Dell has Linux offerings, they could have chosen the path Apple took but they chose to make their focus hardware only. Apple learned their lesson during the days of Visicalc. “It’s the software”. Dell chose the outsourcing route and to become the focal point of drop ship commodity assembly. All Mike chose to do with his company was continue what he did from his dorm room in college which was assemble commodity boxes as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Wringing out supply chain costs is a one trick pony which doesn’t give you time to innovate or add value because you’re too busy counting the money in the boom times. Apple chose not to make commodity pieces despite many cries from their customers and competitors to do so over the years. For the moral of this story see the fable of the grasshopper and the ant.