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Speaker 1: This is a podcast from WOR.

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Speaker 2: Here's Larry Minte with more of the WOOR.

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Speaker 1: Saturday Morning Show. Amazon and other major companies are cutting

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Speaker 1: thousands of jobs. Is AI to blame? Let's ask career

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Speaker 1: advice expert Greg g and Grande Greg. It's fascinating. Amazon

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Speaker 1: and a lot of other big companies are announcing big

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Speaker 1: layoffs and a lot of people are assuming that's AI related.

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Speaker 1: Is that If that's true, is it just Amazon and

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Speaker 1: other big tech companies or is it affecting other jobs

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Speaker 1: and entry level jobs?

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Speaker 2: For sure, it is more widespread than what we hear

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Speaker 2: about in the headlines. Lots of big public companies have

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Speaker 2: to make public announcements about their layoffs, and certainly a

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Speaker 2: company like Amazon is going to make headlines, whereas one

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Speaker 2: of the tens of thousands of other companies that no

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Speaker 2: one has heard of. Even if they announce internally that

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Speaker 2: they're going to be conducting layoffs, no news organization is

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Speaker 2: going to pick it up. But many companies have been

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Speaker 2: trimming their resources, and it's only partially due to AI

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Speaker 2: and the you know, the advancements and technology certainly a

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Speaker 2: contributing factor. That's uh that no one would dispute that,

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Speaker 2: but it's it's there are other factors as well. Every

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Speaker 2: successful company, in order to sustain success, has to constantly

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Speaker 2: evaluate the marketplace and how they are deploying their capital,

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Speaker 2: their financial capital and their human capital. Are they built

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Speaker 2: today for what the challenges and the opportunities and the

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Speaker 2: marketplace are today and for the next three to five years.

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Speaker 2: And if they haven't done that in the last five years,

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Speaker 2: well how they were built five years ago may not

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Speaker 2: be how they need to be built going forward. Soanies

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Speaker 2: go through this rigorous process of looking at their layers

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Speaker 2: and spans of control and how they're structured internally, and

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Speaker 2: what their hiring needs are going to be, and where

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Speaker 2: they're investing in teams, and so you get periodically these

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Speaker 2: kind of major organizational announcements of layoffs, partially due to

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Speaker 2: AI and the advancements and capabilities of technology, but just

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Speaker 2: partially due to all the other market factors.

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Speaker 1: It's happened so many times in our history. I think

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Speaker 1: we every time it does happen, we forget that, yes,

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Speaker 1: there's going to be advancements in technology and in manufacturing

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Speaker 1: and in the way for instance, cars are built and

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Speaker 1: every single and robotics, and every single times that happens,

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Speaker 1: it seems to be there is this feeling of doom

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Speaker 1: and gloom, like, uh oh, there's gonna be a lot

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Speaker 1: of people out of work, and it seems like the

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Speaker 1: marketplace always is able to catch up to the technology,

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Speaker 1: even though there might be a big hit. This is

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Speaker 1: his old is the cotton gin. You know, it's happened

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Speaker 1: over and over and over again, but this one seems

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Speaker 1: a little bit different. You talk to people all the time,

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Speaker 1: is it different?

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Speaker 2: You're right, well, it feels different because the peace of

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Speaker 2: the change is far more rapid than ever before, and

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Speaker 2: the disruption because of the technology and how fast the

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Speaker 2: capabilities are growing. That's why it feels different this time.

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Speaker 2: And you go back years back. Even with just the Internet,

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Speaker 2: like twenty five years ago, it still took years for

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Speaker 2: companies and industries to adapt and really take advantage of

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Speaker 2: that capability, so it didn't feel like it was sudden

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Speaker 2: and overnight. And with AI, it feels like, wow, we

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Speaker 2: were just talking about AI and now it's disrupting everything.

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Speaker 2: It's because the capabilities are so great and happening so fast.

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Speaker 2: Let's think it's important. Good. I was just going to say,

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Speaker 2: I think it's important for people to understand that, you know,

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Speaker 2: one of the ways to think about how you can

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Speaker 2: protect yourself as much as you can and to avoid

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Speaker 2: a layoff is to really be in tune and in

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Speaker 2: sync with what are the priorities of the company, and

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Speaker 2: how can I make myself as indispensable as possible for

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Speaker 2: what the company needs and wants to do going forward

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Speaker 2: and maintain visibility, Be a champion of the company culture

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Speaker 2: and strategy, be great at what you do, and be visible,

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Speaker 2: positive and visible.

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Speaker 1: You answered the question I was going to ask. So

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Speaker 1: let's go to the Greg e mailbox. Here we go.

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Speaker 1: My boss recently said they were putting me on a

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Speaker 1: performance improvement plan outlining the things I need to do better.

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Speaker 1: I am new to the workforce and still learning, and

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Speaker 1: I am confident I can adapt and learn. But is

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Speaker 1: a the performance improvement plan common for new hires who

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Speaker 1: are learning or is my job in jeopardy? Great question?

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Speaker 2: It is a great question, and the odds are that

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Speaker 2: this early career person is going to learn something new

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Speaker 2: that a performance improvement plan is really a misnomer. And

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Speaker 2: everybody talks about this privately. Everybody makes fun of the name,

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Speaker 2: they should change the name. Every manager, every HR person

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Speaker 2: a performance improvement plan. And I say this anecdotally, but

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Speaker 2: I bet statistically it's not far off. At least ninety

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Speaker 2: percent of employees who are put on a performance improvement

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Speaker 2: plan exit the company within that year, either voluntarily or

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Speaker 2: involuntarily what And that's because a performance improvement plan really

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Speaker 2: means the company is not happy with your performance and

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Speaker 2: they are documenting what they're not happy about and what

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Speaker 2: you need to do to improve in order to save

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Speaker 2: your job, which is different from a normal development plan

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Speaker 2: that you might give to employees for how they can

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Speaker 2: learn and grow and advance their skills. This is we

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Speaker 2: have had discussions about you not performing well. Now I'm

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Speaker 2: going to document it, and if things don't change pretty dramatically,

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Speaker 2: you are likely to lose your job in the next

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Speaker 2: thirty sixty ninety days. That's the dirty little secret about

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Speaker 2: performance improvement plans.

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Speaker 1: Well that was a surprise ending. Well, we'll talk more

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Speaker 1: about this. Greg Gie and Grande Career advice expert with

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Speaker 1: us every Wednesday at nine thirty five. Thanks a lot, Greg.

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Speaker 1: This has been a podcast from wor