Strategic Human Resource Management

Section One

Employment Guarantees

Although the distinction between no-layoff policies and
employment guarantees may be artificial, the latter, although a
somewhat elastic concept, may take the concept a step further.
Employment guarantees have been defined in the popular
management literature as “oral agreements to move heaven
and earth to avoid layoffs.”^86 Employment guarantees are made
feasible by many of the same actions as no-layoff policies. One
of most important tactics is understaffing. Companies such as
IBM and Motorola staff some of their operations with 70 to 85
percent of the number of permanent employees needed for
production at normal demand levels. The difference in labor
needed is usually made up with overtime, temporary
employees, subcontracting, or employees contracted on a
short-term basis. A second tactic is flexibility in job assignment,
which is made possible by employees who can perform several
tasks and the absence of restrictive work practices such as
narrow task definitions. Such flexibility also is supported by
retraining for those whose skills have been made obsolete by
technological advances and redeployment of excess labor. An
innovative tactic is to redeploy extra personnel into sales. A
more common redeployment may be assignments to
maintenance activities. A third tactic, work sharing, involves
sharing the available work by reducing the number of hours for