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Where are the layoffs coming from?

AOL is laying off lots of folks. Here’s where the layoffs are coming from, according to WaPo via Valleywag:

* Forty-five people from AOL’s free CD department were given paid leave last month to look for new jobs.
* AOL says it will sell its European dial-up division. That will rid it of 3,000 employees (in addition to the 5,000 being laid off) in Britain, France, and Germany alone.
* AOL’s handing out severance packages and job-search help, which is a classy gesture but drives up the cost of the layoffs. (Time Warner expects to spend up to $350 million on phase-changing AOL, a good chunk of that covering severances.)

Sheesh. I notice no executives are on their way out. Isn’t that the way it always goes?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 6th, 2006 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Interesting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14205775/

    This article highlights the 'man' at AOL who is 'changing' things - the interesting thing is that all the execs think this will turn AOL around. I personally think the damage is done. AOL's imaged has changed dramatically. At this point they don't offer much more than what you can already get for free. And the stuff they do offer (security, antivirus, other content) you can get elsewhere and it works alot better. Content you can get other places. Jason Calacrackass announced on his blog that AOL will be giving away 5gb of free storage (or the equivalent of a little more than 1 data DVD) - it will have some new drag and drop interface and you can bet your sweet mary it will be chock full of ADS - how about this people - rather than buy subject yourself to this invest $39 from newegg.com and buy a dvd burner that burns + and - R/RW dvd's and Dual layer then spend another $30 on a 100 spindle of dvd + or - R's and then you have over 500 gb of storage that only cost you $70 and you don't have to put up with a bunch of sh***y ads - AOL's current strategy will only keep some of current members from leaving. It will take alot longer for them to turn things around. I noticed on their 'video portal' they have downloads for free of crappy old sitcoms and other shows and a few music videos. If they really wanted to be a front runner they would offer more current content for free. For example CBS posts the episodes of Big Brother for free after they are aired incase you missed it. It is streaming but stuff like this is much more attracting than old 80's sitcoms or whatever. Nobody cares about AOL anymore - the name leaves a bad taste kinda like the KFC and me due to a bout of food poisoning.
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    A few years ago Michael Moore calculated that compensation for executives in the U.S. was something like 242 times the salaries of front-line workers. Not that I miss the retention department, but I wonder if letting go of 1 executive (ideally one who was particularly tolerant of or contributive to AOL's culture of greed) would yield the same paper cost savings as letting go of 200 retention consultants? It might be more just to let go of 1 or more executives and allow 200 or more former retention consultants to stay employed but be re-assigned to do a different job where they do something pro-social and human, and use their brains for good rather than evil.

    In any case, AOL with even more ads -- even if free -- is about as uninviting a product as I can think of.
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    Let me tell you about what they do with executives. In the AOL ogden Call center when they needed to consolidate some of their departments they had an extra AGM name Paul K. -
    he was an assistant general manager and they only needed 2 instead of 3 so they basically created a job for him - i think it was something like consultant enhancement manager or something stupid like that. No one really knew what his job was - but while i was there he sent out a survey about what kind of games we wanted in the break room and he basically just sat around and didn't do much except collect his $75000+ salary - but they still cut staff but not him. Oh sure he got 3 xbox's setup and some pinball machines but no one else really knew what he did and even management didn't know what he did. There is a certain level on the ladder where you are guarenteed to be safe. and he was at that level.
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    http://www.corp.aol.com/careers/callAZ.html

    Why are all their call centers still hiring like mad when they are planning massive layoffs? Well it is simple - they have alot of tenured employees making a alot more than the $14/hour starting wage. My friend who has been their 8 years is makeing over $25 per hour. They will hire alot of newbies and then 'trim the fat cats' earning more than that minimum. They don't needed skilled retention guys now. They just need robots who alot like the india call centers - so they will hire noobs, then slash and burn the higher payroll guys. Kinda like NFL teams who are over the salary cap - they release the veterans and sign rookies and boneheads. That is why they are still hiring - if you don't believe this then just fire off an email to HR Generalist Melissa Mann at melissaisin@aol.com 801-622-7886
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    I'm not surprised to hear that AOL HR is rife with dysfunction.
 

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