Corporate cuts come with difficult choices, but too often they come down to treating people like lines on a budget spreadsheet. You would like to think that every decision to lay a person off comes after careful consideration, but history has generally shown that's not really the case.
It's hard to imagine that Meta Platforms (Facebook) (META), Amazon (AMZN), and other big tech companies truly weighed the value of each person they were letting go before making the decision. Some managers making those calls were likely more thoughtful than others, but many likely made choices to make the numbers work.
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Twitter's layoffs were so extreme that some people had to be called back because they performed critical tasks that others literally did not know how to do. Walt Disney (DIS), which has just begun laying off about 7,000 workers has shown historically that it sometimes makes bad calls.
In the last round of Disney cuts, ESPN let some on-air talent go that had just signed new contracts (meaning that the company had to pay them, but could not use them). And, in an extreme case, Disney laid off ESPN reporter Ed Werder, only to bring him back two years later.
Now, in its latest round of cuts Disney has laid off a 43-year ESPN veteran in a move that might save the company, but at the cost of its business.
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ESPN Starts Making Staff Cuts
The challenge with layoffs is that people in management start looking at the bottom line and the cost of replacement rather than the value a person brings. As part of its cuts, ESPN laid off 43-year veteran Vice President of Corporate Communications Mike Soltys who started with ESPN in 1980 as an unpaid intern.
Soltys, the face of ESPN to the many journalists who covered the company, likely made more, after 43 years, than the cost of a person to replace him. But how exactly do you replace a person who not only has that depth of company historical knowledge but also relationships with media from the minor leagues to the top of the industry.
Steve Collins, who for many years was the lead reporter at "The Bristol Press," the newspaper in the Connecticut city where ESPN is located lamented the layoff.
"I know that it's kind of a red wedding day for cable news -- goodbye Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon -- but the departure that hits home for me is the shocking pink slip for Mike Soltys, a 43-year ESPN veteran who in so many ways was the soul of the company," he shared on Facebook. "I've known Mike for three decades and in all that time, he's been friendly, kind, and professional -- even when things weren't going great at the Bristol-based cable giant."
It's not the loss of Soltys' kindness that shocked Collins.
"But the thing that astounds me about his looming departure, though bad corporate decision-making should never shock me anymore, is that Mike cared more about ESPN's history and heritage than anyone I ever met. Of course, he had an inside seat to the company's rise and, more recently, its troubles. He saw it all. And he loved most of it. How ESPN could cut out its heart to save a few bucks, I can't imagine," he shared.
Disney Shows the Problems of Managing By Spreadsheet
You can't put a dollar value on what someone like Soltys and likely many other people who have lost their jobs over the past few months bring to their company. A public relations executive's financial impact on a company can't easily be quantified, but how many times did Soltys' relationship with a reporter cause them to pause and ask one more question or give one more chance to comment before some damning story went to print.
"Soltys’ departure will leave a gaping hole in ESPN’s communications department, as he has countless deep relationships with media who cover the network," wrote Sports Business Journal's John Ourand.
Not every PR person (or maybe even many) earns the respect of the people that cover that company. Soltys had that because for many of us, myself included, he was nice to us and answered our questions when we were nobodies working for fifth-tier media outlets,
I didn't know Mike well, but over decades of asking for his help at media jobs that ranged from local weeklies to The Boston Globe, and now TheStreet, he never ignored a request or did anything less than his best to help. Yes, Disney will save some dollars by bringing in someone new, but it's hard to see how this move helps the company and it's likely that all the big tech layoffs have similar stories hidden inside their massive cuts.
