Perform better – or else.
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The Wall Street Journal received an internal email (of which the company confirmed the authenticity) dated Oct. 4, stating that Ford was giving employees who had been with the company for more than eight years and whose performance was declining two options: implement a “performance improvement plan” – or resign .
The email was sent to all US executives at the Dearborn, Michigan-based company, offering a few options for weeding out lagging employees.
One is spotting the underachievers by focusing on “white collar” jobs. Those people can resign or participate in a four to six week improvement plan. If successfully completed, employees can stay on. But if not, the resignation option will be removed, WSJ reported.
It’s the latest move by major companies on labor optimization amid growing fears of a recession. Google has sent employees questions about increasing efficiency at the company and has focused on cost savings. meta”gently“Started downsizing the staff in September.
Tech in particular suffered a serious crash after two hours year of staggering growth during the pandemic, but as WSJ points out, there’s another factor at play for automakers: electric cars, which have fueled Ford’s drive to cut costs.
Ford also fired over 3,000 workers in August. All of this is happening as the company aims to cut billions in costs so it can scale its electric vehicle infrastructure.
“In China, we posted a loss of $200 million, driven by the investments we’re making in electric vehicles,” Ford’s CFO John Lawler said during the company’s most recent earnings call last week.
Ford EV products include the truck, F-150 Lighting and the Mustang Mach-E.
The company also withdrew its investment in autonomous vehicles. It and Volkswagen were major investors in a self-driving car company, Argo AI. It was closed somewhat unexpectedly last week, by WIRED.
“In consultation with our shareholders, the decision has been made that Argo AI will not continue its mission as a company. Many of the employees will have the opportunity to work at Ford or Volkswagen with automated driving technology, while working for others. unfortunately comes to an end”, Argo AI said in a statement.
Ford’s CEO previously said there are simply too many employees, WSJ noted.
Ford, and “I think any company probably has too many people. I just have to — we have to go do the workflows and decide how this works now in the future,” said CEO and president Jim Farley during his earnings call in July.