Strategies for Responsible Downsizing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Strategies for Responsible Downsizing - Essay Example 4). This article is of interest to corporate management and Board members who are exploring the option of downsizing their workforce. Cascio delivers a lengthy review of real-world risks, benefits and disappointments by organizations choosing to downsize. It is highlighted that a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats analysis be carried out first. This will assist management to make an informed decision as to whether to downsize, and how to implement their decision in a responsible and transparent way (Horngren et al. 100; Hoggett, Sweeting and Radford 15). The goal of strategy change is to enhance market competitiveness and to align with international discourse of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Management may decide to downsize with the goal to improve returns. Evidence shows that this is only a short term solution. There are significant social consequences, such as the loss of human resources, customers and suppliers confidence. Future growth will be more costly because of having to continuously hire new staff to be trained; low wages and poor working conditions do not endear staff loyalty. Further, there can be a lack of corporate structure following downsizing, in turn increasing the workload and interpersonal and intrapersonal pressures on staffs, affecting customer interest and loyalty. With regard to needing a strategic option that is a preventative measure to reduce costs, downsizing is a last resort. Are Employees Assets or Costs Management accounting classifies labour as a variable cost rather than a fixed overhead (Horngren et al. 10). Employees are viewed as "costs," to be "cut" when downsizing. Human Resource managers however, view people as the greatest asset within a corporation, which is a network of social beings interlinked with external networks. As Cascio notes, contemporary responsible restructuring requires that employees be seen as assets to be developed. Multi-skilling of employees is a key training focus within commercial industry today, with R&D using predominantly government support, to study organizational culture, leadership patterns, continuous improvement and learning across the lifetime. Business Concept

Why Civil Forfeiture in Law Enforcement is an Effective Tool Essay

Why Civil Forfeiture in Law Enforcement is an Effective Tool - Essay Example is administered towards more rehabilitative efforts of reforming the criminals and integrating them back into society made it necessary they are given the means to get back on their feet. A modern version of this concept is not directed at an individual criminal but more on the crime syndicates by depriving them of their ill-gotten gains and compensate victims (Young 1). There are two kinds of forfeitures being carried out today: criminal and civil cases. In the first case, criminal forfeitures are the result of a court settlement or a judicial award in that the convicted criminal is punished by taking away the assets after a conviction. In civil cases, the government files suit to recover a property item but not against the propertys owner. The owner himself is reduced to being a third-party claimant who has to prove the money used to buy or acquire the property came from legal or legitimate sources. The objectives of the new civil forfeiture laws are two-fold: deprive the criminals of the facilities and properties they use to commit their crime or furtherance of their criminal activities and use the proceeds of these seized properties to support law enforcement, such as hiring more cops or increasing a budget. An order for a civil forfeiture recovery case does not require a prior criminal conviction. The whole intent is to disable criminals from e ventually resuming the activities (Edgeworth xxii). The only requirement for filing a forfeiture case is probable cause a certain property is being used in criminal activities. A property owner, on the other hand, has to prove otherwise through a preponderance of evidence that it was acquired using legitimate sources of income. The new laws today reversed the situation in that it is now the government that has to prove it using a preponderance of evidence instead of the previous probable cause only that can be a source of abuse of power and arbitrariness on the part of law enforcement agencies. In other words, the