Ford has a message for white-collar workers, and it reads: “Form or ship.”
According to the email received The Wall Street JournalFord targets the “weaker” with an ultimatum asking them to either improve or leave the company.
As part of the effort, employees with eight years of service who have been “identified as exhibiting a pattern of declining performance” can either accept a buyout and leave the automaker or participate in a four- to six-week performance improvement program. While the latter could potentially save their job, it’s not a sure thing, and failure to improve could result in them losing their job, as well as being offered a layoff.
also: Stellantis is offering a voluntary buyout to US employees
This will leave a number of employees facing a dangerous decision, but it can also be seen as a second chance. It remains unclear how many people are affected by the action, but the move appears to be part of a larger effort to cut 3,000 jobs by 2026.
The policy changes reportedly took effect on October 1 and are seen as a move to make it easier to deal with inefficient employees. At the same time Ford was focused on cost reduction and profit maximization.
The automaker released its third-quarter earnings report last week and concluded that “large-scale, profitable commercialization of advanced Level 4 driver assistance systems in the automotive industry will be further along than originally expected.” With this in mind, the automaker has decided to stop investing in Argo AI to focus on internally developed L2+/L3 technology. This leads to formwork Argo A.I as Volkswagen also decided to stop investing in the company.
Ford also said they had been weighed down by “higher raw material costs” and “inflationary pressures”, which saw payments to suppliers around $1bn (£872m/€1bn) more than expected.
https://www.carscoops.com/2022/10/ford-reportedly-giving-underperforming-employees-an-ultimatum-shape-up-or-ship-out/
