Well, if you're owned by Disney Studios these days, chances are the more strategic business decision making has to do with laying workers off.
Disney has really pissed me off lately, in more ways than one. I used to be angry when Michael Eisner was CEO and he almost ran the company down to the ground, not to mention laying off just about the entire 2d animation team was being let go. Pixar co-founder John Lasseter was one of the animators at Disney back in the day who got the pink slip but of course, he helped start the company that is giving Disney a bit of mojo these days.
Actually, a bit of mojo isn't good enough for Disney. Although Michael Eisner is gone (thankfully), Disney Studios remains just about determined to tarnish Walt Disney's legacy with their bureaucratic, systematic, administrative decision making without any regard to workers. In a way, they're becoming the Walmart of film studios.
In the case of stabbing George Lucas in the back by buying LucasArts for a few billion and then shutting down the entire team at the company, now ESPN is taking the bait.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
NEW YORK — ESPN is cutting its workforce, the latest Disney division to reduce staff.
"We are implementing changes across the company to enhance our continued growth while smartly managing costs," the sports media giant said in a statement Tuesday. "While difficult, we are confident that it will make us more competitive, innovative and productive."
As the news video above states, roughly 300 employees are being laid off. Not sure what ESPN means when it says the layoffs will make them more competitive, innovative and productive.
In fact, by mentioning innovative, there is nothing innovative about laying off staff. That's like saying Greece was innovative in implementing continued austerity measures. We all know innovation comes from technology, real creativity and real outside the box thinking as opposed to Draconian cuts.
This is where the ESPN firing situation gets bizarre in my opinion. Per the Tweet of James Andrews Miller at ESPN Book:
Ok. So layoffs are between 300-400, including open jobs that won't be filled. However, ESPN still seems to be hiring and in growth mode.
Does this make any sense?! Of course not. ESPN doesn't seem to want to take the time to offer its employees the chance to take on other roles and instead gives them the birdie. I'm sure the company probably thought the workers couldn't have the shot at the new positions being hired for. Who knows what will happen to the new people who get hired in the new positions years down the road?
However, you can tell Disney is really just run by robots these days if it continues to be "on a roll financially."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Still, Disney has been on a roll financially, beating or matching earnings per share estimates for the last eight quarters. After it reported a 32 percent gain in net income for its fiscal second-quarter earnings two weeks ago, more than a dozen Wall Street analysts raised their price targets on Disney stock to an average of nearly $72.
As usual, like most corporations that seem to be interested in micromanaging their expenses while at the same time giving the short end of the stick to the workers, ESPN seems to be yet another company that's living too much in the past and not in the 21st century where innovative companies like Google and Salesforce are more likely to make decisions not on the backs of workers (with the exception of acquisitions).
ESPN isn't getting me any support these days so long as Disney continues to own it. However, I do like the Star Wars ad made years ago:
If any of you want to go after ESPN, you're more than welcome to.
ESPN Corporate Office & Headquarters
500 South Buena Vista Street Burbank CA 91521
Call
1-888-549-3776 (ESPN)
(818) 560-1000
E-mail
http://espn.go.com/...