I've watched leadership celebrate American values publicly while overseeing the outsourcing of thousands of American jobs.
Recently, our CEO said, I am proud to be an American because this country was founded on the principle that ordinary people could do extraordinary things.
That's a difficult message to reconcile with what many employees are experiencing.
Employees are being laid off. Others are being required to train the people who will replace them through offshore outsourcing. Additional reductions continue while employees are told not to worry. Many positions are being transitioned to third-party providers, leaving employees with uncertainty about their future.
The real tragedy isn't just the impact on employees. It's the loss of decades of institutional knowledge and specialized expertise that cannot simply be transferred in a few weeks of training. Leadership appears to believe these roles are interchangeable. Those of us who actually perform the work know they are not.
The result will likely be slower delivery, lower service quality, frustrated customers, and the eventual realization that some highly specialized functions cannot simply be moved halfway around the world without consequences.
Cost cutting is one thing. Every company has to make difficult business decisions. But there is a difference between making hard decisions and pretending they have no human or operational cost. It makes even less sense when the broad brush of reductions and outsourcing are applied to business units that are highly profitable and growing.
If you're going to publicly champion what it means to be an American company, your actions toward your American workforce should reflect those values.