CSC orders staff home in cost-cutting shutdown
'It's OK, you can use up next year's holiday!'
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Outsourcing firm CSC has joined other IT giants by ordering staff to take extra holiday over Christmas in a bid to cut costs.
Managers in CSC's Global Outsourcing Services (GOS) division have been told to identify critical areas that need to be staffed by a skeleton crew during the festive period, according to an internal email this week seen by The Register. "We do not want this to be a financial hardship on anyone and recognize that this is short notice," CSC said.
The shutdown will run from December 20 to January 4.
Staff who do not have the necessary seven days paid holiday remaining to cover the period (three of the working days in the two weeks are public holidays) would have to use up days from their next paid holiday entitlement. "We do not want this to be a financial hardship on anyone and recognize that this is short notice," said the email, signed by Richard Ricks, president of the GOS division.
He continued: "The holiday shutdown is a significant opportunity for cost containment, and thereby contributes to our competitiveness and shareholder value. We appreciate your support as we pull together during these challenging times and tough market conditions."
CSC is just the latest big employer to insist that its staff don't come to work as the banking crisis that began more than a year ago spreads to the real economy.
In November nearly all Dell employees were asked to take a week of unpaid vacation. The Texas firm said it hoped to avoid big layoffs. HP quickly followed suit, already having announced almost 25,000 job losses.
The firm's UK arm said its offices would remain open over Christmas except for three working days. It said this was a long-standing policy. In 2006 CSC UK withdrew its Christmas bonus plan. Last year staff got a mince pie. ®
COMMENTS
Cutting (exit) costs
Agree with previous post hinting the same: This is just an excercise to limit the company's costs in reducing the work force. Hard to know how to play this type of game...icon attached for more detail.
CSC GOS
The thing that I find so funny about this is that they have implemented a "managed" vacation plan. And with usual <sarcastic> brilliant </sarcastic> execution, they wait until the end of the fracking year to tell those of us with substantial amounts of vacation built up, we need to burn most of it prior to 3/31.
OK, I can actually accept the managed vacation policy, as it does limit some financial liability that the company is responsible for, when they eliminate employees. But waiting until the end of the year and telling technical staff that they have to put all of their revenue generating projects on hold and burn vacation, is just plain stupid.
We've had a lot of idiots in power positions at CSC but Rick's takes the cake. And I haven't figured out if he and his minions are positioning GOS to be placed on the auction block or if they've come to that last act of desperation, because they've mismanaged the company so badly?
If the internal rumors are true, which I wouldn't be surprised if they are (as this is outrageous enough to come from the upper tier of CSC), IF an employee is unable to comply with the managed vacation policy, they are identified as "high risk" and will be placed on a possible RIF list.
Just a personal note to Dick:
News flash numb nuts, instead of beating all of the mules to death, why don't you reduce some of the endless ranks of upper middle management that you've personally had a hand in creating? Most of those morons are redundant bean counters and we're a fucking technology company... How many accountants and managers do you need generating pretty pie charts and power point spreadsheets showing that we're leaking money like a sieve, because your ego won't allow you to accept the fact that you are simply wrong.
If you're not careful, you'll steer us down the same path as the American auto industry, if you aready havent (but just don't know it yet).
@AC
"not accrue" may mean that they are forced to take whatever vacation they earn during that period, in other words their vacation balance cannot increase. I've seen that done elsewhere, but usually over a longer period than a single quarter.
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