The company I work for has had 2 or 3 rounds of layoffs over the past year and a half. CEO and VPs haven't got laid off or a paycut. I think cuts should start with leadership. They need to own the mistakes that were made.
Their lot (VP-level certainly) rotates in and out, often with 3-4 layers of middle management between them and the crews executing, which makes direct assignment of blame exceedingly difficult. Every 3-4 years you get a near-complete rotation of leadership in an area of †he business, and any memory of what anyone was trying to achieve before is forgotten, either intentionally or unintentionally, and then you do it all over again.
> I think cuts should start with leadership.
That would be fair, but leadership decides who to cut, so... here's your belongings, please be out of the building by noon.
So many times you see reporting on a round of layoffs and it quotes the CEO saying “I take responsibility.” But… how? It seems like the actual responsibility is being borne by the people who just lost their livelihood. What exactly is this definition of responsibility where you experience no negative effects whatsoever?