Sanofi Makes Sales Reps Listen to "On Hold" Muzak Before Axing Their Jobs
There are no good ways to tell someone they are losing their job, and Sanofi-Aventis (SNY) has found a new one: Today, its drug sales reps had to call one of two teleconference lines. If you were scheduled for the 11 am call it meant you got to keep your job. If you were one of 1,700 or so who got the 11.30 a.m. call, well, good luck. (It was not clear whether the call times applied company-wide or only in certain geographies.)
The layoffs are not news -- they were announced in October -- but the lottery-like phone number system is. Sanofi staffers were not supposed to know that the first call meant you were retained and the second not, but they figured it out several hours before the call on Cafe Pharma, the online gossip site for drug industry workers. During previous rounds of layoffs, Sanofi's managers had made individual calls to all staffers to tell them personally whether they were being retained.
It's "kinda like a career scratch-off," one source told me. Another, also on Cafe Pharma, described it this way:
Our intention is to let everyone know of his/her status on a series of heartless cattle call-style teleconferences. We feel this is the easiest way to relay such information to a large group mainly because it avoids interacting with those individuals on a lower pay scale than us. Those employees who will be retained with Sanofi-Aventis will be notified on one such call and those who will be living in a cardboard box come spring will be notified in another. The second call will not last as nearly as long as the first.In corporate America generally, HR executives and the lawyers who advise them have have ruined the "you're fired" conversation, which used to be a test of character on both sides and a time for straight talk. At many companies, bosses are no longer allowed to express emotions, describe the reasons an individual is being terminated in honest or straightforward terms, or even say "I'm sorry" -- all for legal reasons that reduce the company's liability. Today, the process is a dehumanizing one in which bosses and employees are expected to adhere to a soulless, boilerplate script even though they are going through one of the most stressful experiences the workplace has to offer. Sanofi added "on-hold" muzak to that experience as employees waited for their teleconferences to begin:
This f"ing music is giving me anxiety....geeze how about some calming sounds instead of this crap[?]The call was hosted by vp/U.S. sales Joseph Balzer. He told listeners that in addition to cuts of Sanofi's own employees, 250 contract sales reps would also be let go. He said on the call:
We all know we need to adjust our resources to reflect the realities of our business. You know all about the patent expirations and the generic competition, the unstable economy and the fundamental shifts in the U.S. healthcare industry, and how they are impacting our company ...
Our current size and cost structure cannot be sustained by our sales and revenue from our future product portfolio. There's a gap between the products going off patent and the new patents moving into commercialization in the next few years.The company's official position is that the layoffs will leave the company at the right size through 2013, so surviving reps shouldn't have to fear more rounds of cuts for the next three years.
Related:
Image by Flickr user shannon abigail simbulan, CC.