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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > June > 10 > Entry
Ellen Belcher: Will NCR lessen the losses?
It’s not about us any more. It’s about NCR’s employees.
Just how are we going to help them? What specifically are we — Dayton people, Dayton companies, Dayton institutions — going to do for them?
Maybe it’s just paranoia running wild, but the talk on the street is that NCR employees are terrified that many of them will not be offered positions in Georgia or that the jobs will be so downgraded that they won’t be able to afford to move.
If it’s just a rumor, if people are worrying about nothing, then only NCR can put the concerns to rest and quickly be more specific about its plans.
In truth, and in the company’s defense, NCR would not be the first business to be trying to shed jobs through consolidating. We all get it that the “c” word is a euphemism for cuts.
Even if not every last one of the 1,300 employees and their families are staying awake at night, many are frightened that they’re going to be out of work and without the severance packages that, for example, General Motors employees received.
We need to get some things going for them.
They need a physical place to go, where they can start networking; where they can find out what jobs are available; where companies in the area (and from around Ohio) can interview them.
NCR has said that it’ll start letting people know by the end of the month whether they’ll be asked to move. But in case that doesn’t happen quickly, there also needs to be a “virtual” space for people to connect and interact with potential employers.
People need cover; not everyone will want to walk into a de facto recruiting office, risking getting marked and destroying any chance of staying with NCR.
We also need the universities and their business schools and local entrepreneurs reaching out to the folks who are wondering if this is the push (or shove) they need to break out on their own, to create their own start-up, to try something else.
It’s a miserable time to be raising capital, but there’s plenty of cheap space in which to work and create, and Dayton has the infrastructure — especially at the University of Dayton, Wright State and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base— to go for research dollars and get behind smart people with the next big idea.
The Dayton community also needs something from NCR. It needs to know details about the company’s work force. Precisely what kinds of jobs do the NCR workers have? How many are accountants, lawyers, programmers, sales people, support staff and so on?
Coping with the exit of a corporate headquarters requires every bit as much planning as the shuttering of a manufacturing plant. In some ways it can even be more complicated because people have a wider variety of jobs. NCR is not DHL. We’re not just in need of jobs for pilots and sorters.
Only NCR can tell elected officials and community leaders who is going to be needing help. And there isn’t a lot of time before some — maybe even a lot of — people are going to be hitting the street. The information about the nature of the work force has to be requested and disclosed quickly.
NCR has said it will offer employees outplacement services. But that’s not good enough. That allows the professional and personal hemorrhaging to happen in the dark, in the privacy of each individual’s gloom. It provides too little support.
Outplacement is what a company offers when it lays off one, 10 or 50 people — not when it moves a corporate headquarters, not when it’s siphoning so many jobs from a community. This, after all, is not a potential brain drain; very possibly it could be a brain gush.
Without concrete information from NCR, there’s no way to plan, no way to create a strategy for helping large groups of people land on their feet — here or elsewhere. NCR has to know the blow it has dealt to Dayton and the hundreds of employees who have worked hard and long for a company that is upending their lives.
The least it owes its people is its best efforts to minimize the financial loss and the personal difficulties that, to one degree or another, every single person is experiencing.
Can they and we please get on with getting on with our lives? Can we count on NCR to make its last acts here a model for corporate responsibility?
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Columns, Economy, Ellen Belcher, Local Business
Comments
By now is the time
June 10, 2009 6:53 PM | Link to this
The real story isn’t about NCR anymore - rather it’s about what is being done to connect any and all of the displaced and under employed workers in the region with meaningful employment. The leaders of this community have got to get their collective acts together to create an environment where business want to do business and workers want to live. Stop talking about it and start doing it! Many displaced workers in the region have grown tired of “you’re overqualified” when they are fortunate enough to even get to the interview. NCR workers are sure to face the same fate. This makes retaining the talent pool a difficult proposition. As a community, we need to get on with our lives too. For some, this will mean they need to move away. For others, this means they will choose to accept a lesser position to stay in the city/area they love. And yet others, who complain about everything in the area, should be the ones to leave but are likely to linger about. Let’s change the conversation from doom and gloom to what’s next. Leaders move this conversation into an action plan. Leaders, do what you’re supposed to do and lead. The time to start is now!By dag1312
June 10, 2009 7:32 PM | Link to this
why do the former employees need a place to go to network? how about their homes on their computers? like the rest of the intellectual, business savy people do in this country.By Joe
June 10, 2009 9:55 PM | Link to this
OK, Nuti. It’s obvious you know how to talk. You’ve done one hell of a lot of it in Georgia. Now, work your mouth for the employees who have made it possible for you to put millions in your pocket. Do something right for Dayton, even as you rip it’s heart out! Don’t even bother coming to town. We don’t want you here, now. A courtesy email would be more than enough from you. At least it would be something. If you have even a shred of decency in that swollen head of yours, treat NCR’s employees with the respect they deserve. By your actions, you’ve shown that you are attracted to material gifts, and attention. You’ve shown that you can be bought. Does the gift of a putter make it that easy to put Dayton completely out of your mind? Well, how do you like the attention you’re getting at the birthplace of NCR? How does it feel to be literally hated and despised by the thousands of people who made NCR what it is today? You may be doing wonderful things for Georgia, but at what cost? In the process, you’ve shattered the lives of thousands of others in Ohio. How does one outweigh the other? How do you deal with that? Oh, yeah. Money. Something a lot of people in Dayton won’t have because of you. Well, Nuti, I’ll let you in on a little secret. In the end, it won’t matter how many putters were in your collection or how much money you had. What will matter are what people say about you after you’re gone. What WILL matter is how you’ve lived your life. THAT’S something you can put in the bank.By Joe
June 10, 2009 10:03 PM | Link to this
TO ALL LEADERS IN THE DAYTON AREA. GET ON THE STICK!! NOW!!By Agree
June 11, 2009 8:45 AM | Link to this
Bravo! To the editorial as well as to the comments posted thus far.By D
June 11, 2009 9:10 AM | Link to this
What about the 20,000 NCR employees who lost their jobs back in the 1970’s? I was one of them and where was the out cry!!! It was like so what! Sorry, I survived.By bro
June 11, 2009 9:52 AM | Link to this
I wonder: Why has NCR made the decision to move? Was it to get the investors the best return on their investment? Was it just basic survival? Was it greed? Was it as has been implied a method of getting rid of personnel and cutting costs? Was it because the community took NCR for granted? Was it because the State of Ohio was not paying attention? Was this the first Business to leave Ohio for greener pastures? Was it because Ohio is not a Business friendly State to do business in? There are a lot of questions to answer to figure out the root cause for why businesses are leaving our state. Businesses should have a responsibility to the employees and communities that they belong to. But first and foremost they have to survive and prosper or they will not exist. Was this a move to make sure they will continue to exist? Do the employees, the community, and State need to figure out if anything could have been done differently to avoid this in the future with other companies? I hope after all the emotions are done, those that could have prevented this sit down and figure out how to prevent this from occurring with other companies.By old enough
June 11, 2009 10:16 AM | Link to this
Ms. Belcher’s request for information should include the ages of those that are left behind in Dayton.