Layoffs, rebranded: Corporate euphemisms meet the AI reset

Bengaluru: Companies have never liked the word “fired”. It sounds too much like what actually happened. So every few years, corporate vocabulary comes to the rescue with a softer term for the same hard conversation.“Downsizing”, “rightsizing”, “restructuring”, “optimisation”, “organisational simplification” — corporate vocabulary keeps evolving. The person leaving may notice little difference, but the PowerPoint or press statement certainly sounds nicer.Now, AI is giving the corporate dictionary another reason to expand. Microsoft’s just come up with a new one – voluntary exit offer. Some 60,000 of its employees will be offered this VEO. To be fair, Microsoft is not saying it’s firing all of them. It’s only giving them the option to leave. But what would go through the minds of all those who do not accept it? Won’t they be working with a sense of the guillotine over their heads?Brand and business strategy specialist Harish Bijoor said the pressure on jobs remained, regardless of the terminology used. “Positions are being rejigged and layoffs are the norm of the day,” he said. Bijoor is less impressed by the linguistic makeover. “Corporate HR is notorious in its verbiage for such layoffs. Whatever you call it, a layoff is a layoff. Call what you want. A thorn is a thorn! That which we call by any other name is still a thorn. Apologies to William Shakespeare,” he said.Like fashion, corporate terminology moves in cycles. For as long as companies have been cutting jobs, they have been searching for gentler ways to describe it. The 1990s brought “rightsizing”, recasting downsizing as a correction in organisational size. The 2000s popularised “restructuring” and “reduction in force” (RIF), while the 2010s added “rebalancing”, “streamlining” and “resource action”. In 2023, it was the “year of efficiency”. Jobs disappear. The vocabulary survives, and occasionally gets a promotion.Jessie Paul, independent director and former CMO of Wipro, said AI is changing how companies think about workforce productivity and long-term staffing. “AI is causing a seismic shift in per capita revenue expectations from employees – Anthropic lists a whopping $6.6 million in revenue per employee. As all tech companies figure out how to get closer to this benchmark, they are engaging in long-term employee mix planning at a never-before scale. Companies want to make a distinction between longer-term personnel planning and distress-based terminations, so they’re coming up with new language. It will standardise soon,” she said.Indeed, the corporate world may find yet another gentler word for it. The person carrying the box out of the office probably won’t care.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.