Sacrificial Lamb Problem

I've been here around 8 years now and have noticed a rise in recent years of keeping around poor-performing employees to serve as "sacrificial lambs" for company-wide layoffs instead of properly downsizing departments or getting rid of dead weight in search of better talent. I've worked with some of these employees (prior to their exit) and personally found that they drag down the employees around them and (to some extent) the performance of the company as a whole.

My guess is that this can be traced to selfish managers (who are afraid of being forced to let go of good talent), poor talent acquisition, and bad finance policies (such as removing open recs if they aren't filled in a certain amount of time and not analyzing thoroughly enough where the next round of cuts should be).

Does anyone else see this trend in their departments or in other departments they work with?

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My measure of such slackers (at least in my neck of the woods) was management purposefully installed such people here and there, to assure they have someone loyal to them at all levels, to be their eyes and ears, to spy on others and pass information back onto them, make them aware of any new up-and-comers that want to innovate and do grand things to make a name for themselves, so as to assure that such people are thwarted, undermined, ridiculed, minimised, just to assure they can maintain their authority unopposed.

I've been happy to hear of such people finally exiting out the door, long overdue. When a company is in crisis, managers shouldn't be wasting their time and energy on such nonsense, just do your bloody job and let others do theirs... If others want to innovate and do great things, don't stand in their way... If you want to survive this crisis, you're going to need to hold onto these people, not demoralise them for the sake of your own precious egos...

I agree and Project Management needs to be eliminated or the staff put in the departments they support. The employees are not PMPs and they do nothing but act as middle men. The VP runs a club of his favorite people and is way over paid.

Thread regarding Scientific Games Corp. layoffs

Sacrificial Lamb Problem

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