4 to 6 percent - its that number again

[Alada]

Another instance of the figure popping up for the record:

Bosses 'want annual staff cuts'

More than three quarters of UK bosses think their companies would benefit from an annual quota of staff dismissals, a report has found.

The study said 77% of senior executives think such yearly redundancy targets would boost both their firm's productivity and financial performance.

Yet 75% said they would not bring in such a system as they did not want to introduce "a climate of fear".

The survey by recruitment consultancy Hudson UK spoke to 562 senior managers.

It found that one in six executives thought their company could target up to 20% of its workforce each year for dismissal without damaging productivity and morale.

Less severely, 43% of bosses agreed that dismissing up to 5% of staff each year would be healthy.

'Taboo area'

However, the report also found that only 4% of senior managers currently have a policy of annual staff dismissals, with 22% saying they would rather retain average or below average workers because they fear they would struggle to find better replacements.

"Clearly this is a massive - and to date - relatively taboo area of debate for British business," said Hudson UK chief executive John Rose.

"Businesses need to know how to assess the cultural fit, as well as the technical capability, of a recruit, as well as what training is required.

"Sometimes the best career direction for an employee is out of the company."

Imagine just having an arbitrary redundancy target?! "Yay, we made our redundancy targets this year". Total disconnect from the fact that these arbitrary numbers represent people, families. Its the language too that slips into use, staff being seen as "targets" for dismissal, merely 'things' to be killed off. Chilling.

 

[Redrock12]

"Sometimes the best career direction for an employee is out of the company."

Well, to a degree that may be true. But this clown-or should I say psychopath- is trying to justify getting rid of people simply for the reason of getting rid of them.
Sort of "culling the herd."
And he doesn't mention the downside of such an action. Such as lost productivity owing to decreased morale and increased stress, not to mention time spent on retraining new employees.
Also, consultants have to justify their jobs by always coming up with things like this, even if they don't work or make a situation worse. Like lawyers, you get billed even if they screw up. Not to mention the mess that has to be cleaned up.
I've worked for companies and businesses that treat their employees as if they're no more than units of production, and most of them are no longer around.
So one has to wonder that if beyond trying to justify redundancy quotas, they're trying to get more players so they can get some fresh client, because, and this is hearsay, but there seems to be a trend of a lot of businesses not using consultants because of their poor track record. That is, their advice is more of a way to generate fees than it is to provide a service.
So who's the real deadbeat here?

 

[Laura]

And he doesn't mention the downside of such an action. Such as lost productivity owing to decreased morale and increased stress, not to mention time spent on retraining new employees.

That's the thing that Lobaczewski talks about: how when you put psychopaths in charge of normal humans, everything goes down the tubes. Psychopaths know only how to terrorize normal humans, or manipulate them into acquiescence; they do not know how to stimulate creativity and productivity and they shoot themselves in the foot again and again and again.

In fact, I just recently wrote about it here:
http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/125155-+Stupid+Is+as+Stupid+Does

and quoted Lobaczewski on the topic:

The pathological authorities are convinced that the appropriate pedagogical, indoctrinational, propaganda, and terrorist means can teach a person with a normal instinctive substratum, range of feelings, and basic intelligence to think and feel according to their own [pathology]. This conviction is only slightly less unrealistic, psychologically speaking, than the belief that people able to see colors normally can be broken of this habit.

Actually, normal people cannot get rid of their characteristics, with which the Homo sapiens species was endowed by its phylogenetic past. Such people will never stop feeling and perceiving psychological and socio-moral phenomena in much the same way their ancestors had been doing for hundreds of generations.

Any attempt to make a society "learn" the pathological experiential world view imposed by pathological egotism is, in principle, fated for failure regardless of how many generations it is tried. It does, however, call forth a series of improper psychological results which may give the pathocrats the appearance of success - temporarily. Eventually, however, it also provokes society to pinpointed, well-thought-out self-defense measures based on its cognitive and creative efforts.

Pathocratic leadership believes that it can achieve a state wherein those "other" people's minds become dependent by means of the effects of their personality, perfidious pedagogical means, propaganda, and psychological terror; such faith has a basic meaning for them. In their conceptual world, pathocrats consider it virtually self-evident that the "others" should accept their obvious, realistic, and simple way of apprehending reality. For some mysterious reason, though, the "others" wriggle out, slither away, and tell each other jokes about crazy pathocrats. Someone must be made responsible for this - old time dissidents, liberals, leftists, cults, non-patriotic trouble-makers, or some corrupt radio-stations abroad. It thus becomes necessary to improve the methodology of action, find better "soul engineers" with literary talent, increase propaganda, and isolate society from improper literature and any foreign influence. Those experiences and intuitions whispering that this is a Sisyphian labor must be repressed from the field of consciousness of the pathocrats.

The conflict is thus dramatic for both sides. The first feels insulted in its humanity, rendered obtuse, and forced to think a manner contrary to healthy common sense. The other stifles the premonition that if this goal cannot be reached, sooner or later things normal people will overcome the pathocrats with a vengeful lack of understanding of the pathocrats' personalities. So if it does not work, it is best not to think about the future, just prolong the status quo by means of the above mentioned efforts.

The following questions thus suggests itself: what happens if ... psychopaths achieve power in leadership positions with international exposure? This can happen, especially during the later phases of the phenomenon.

Goaded by their character, such people thirst for just that even though it would conflict with their own life interest.... They do not understand that a catastrophe will ensue. Germs are not aware that they will be burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose death they are causing.

If, by negative selection, the many managerial positions of government are assumed by individuals deprived of sufficient abilities to feel and understand most other people, and who also betray deficiences as regards technical imagination and practical skills - faculties indispensable for governing economic and political matters - this must result in an exceptionally serious crisis in all areas, both within the country in question and with regard to international relations.

Within, the situation shall become unbearable even for those citizens who were able to feather their nest into a relatively comfortable "modus vivendi".

Outside, other societies start to feel the pathological quality of the phenomenon quite distinctly.

Such a state of affairs cannot last long. One must than be prepared for ever more rapid changes, and also behave with great circumspection.

And so it is: such a state of affairs cannot last long... and, as Lobaczewski says, the outcome is inevitable:

Goaded by their character, such people thirst for [global power]. They do not understand that a catastrophe [will] ensue. Germs are not aware that they will be burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose death they are causing.

Yup, Stupid is as stupid does and these critters really are stupid despite the fact that they have so much money and power at their command. They aren't even able to use that money and power sensibly.

 

[Mr. Premise]

That whole "fire 10% every year" thing originated and was popularized by General Electric, a true force for ponerization. They also call it "up or out" in other words, promote or fire.

The thing spread in two ways, CEO Jack Welch's books and, more effectively, they trained zillions of managers who would then take jobs in other companies (it happened to the company I work for back about six years ago) and implement the ponerized philosophy in the other companies.