Change is Inevitable

A couple of weeks ago, I heard about some major drastic changes happening in my company.

Well, the official briefing finally took place about two weeks ago, on a fine Thursday afternoon at a five star hotel not 5 minutes away from the office (whatever the news, they never fail to have it somewhere classy). It started with a very short and quick explanation of a study that was performed at the Group's Corporate Level, and the result was that:

1. There'll be a new Research & Technology Division, with new units and subsidiaries.
2. My company will be part of this division
3. My company will exist only as a legal entity and not a live, breathing organisation. In other words, we're closing down.

That session was quickly followed by a presentation to show what would happen to our staff, and a session for all those 'steaming, burning questions'. This, I suppose, was the most long-awaited part of the briefing.

I had a lot of 'steaming, burning questions' myself. For one, I didn't quite get how they arrived at the conclusion that my company was no longer needed and would have to be scrapped, to be replaced by something that we've always been aspiring to be in the first place. I mean, there didn't seem to be any representative from the company in the study to defend our position. Did they even take into account that we were going through a sort of internal Transformation programme to make ourselves bigger and better? Did they consider other ways of dealing with the situation?

I didn't ask anything about the study because no one else seemed interested to know. At least, not during the Q&A session, although there were a lot of corridor talk later. Hmmm, mindset and behaviour still not changed, I suppose. Besides, it would have been for a purely academic reason. The decision has been made, nothing can change that. We can argue all sorts of angles but it would be just a waste of precious time when everyone seemed more concerned with their own future. If the briefing was held immediately after we all found out when we shouldn't have, it would probably have been a different atmosphere, a more emotional session. I had actually pictured myself ranting and raving with tears down my face, but three weeks on (including a week-long break) had rationalised everyone.

Everyone (including me) asked question centred around one theme, namely "What happens to me now?" As it turned out, even the questions that were asked didn't get a clear enough answer. I suppose there's no concrete plan yet, and having to deal with 900 employees (although almost two-thirds are not permanent staff and could be easily, coldly dismissed) of various situations is no easy feat.

My position seems secure, for now, but the company (or the 'Staff Re-deployment Task Force', to be more appropriate) could decide to just pull everyone out of the project before we complete it in 2009.

We'll just have to wait and see...