U r Sakd

Is there a nice way?

THERE are, Paul Simon once sang, 50 ways to leave your lover. There may be fewer ways to sack your staff, but most are unpleasant — though rarely as nasty as the method chosen last week by Accident Group, a firm that specialises in personal-injury claims, after Amulet, its Luxembourg-based parent, ran out of money. Accident Group's 2,500 staff received a series of text messages on their mobile phones, telling them to call a number. There, a recorded message from the company's insolvency administrators at PricewaterhouseCoopers infonned them that, "All staff who are being retained will be contacted today. If you have not been spoken to you are therefore being made redundant."

This may be the nastiest case of workers being fired by text message. But it is not the first time that firing has been nastier than it need be. Wayne Cascio, a professor of human resources at the University of Colorado-Denver, recalls a technology firm whose staff returned from lunch to find that their security cards no longer worked. Paul Sanchez, of Mercer HR, recalls one firm that invited its staff to a conference in Florida. Briefing packs told some to go to Ballroom A others to Ballroom B. Those in Ballroom A got a presentation on the firm's future; the others were told to go by noon.

Is there a better way? Francis "Tom" Coleman, an American lawyer who recently wrote a book on "ending the employment relationship," urges bosses to sack staff in private, doing it respectfully and preparing a script of what to say. He says bosses often panic, fearing that dismissed staff may steal valuable information if allowed to linger.

In fact, brutally sacked staff may do more damage than those let go kindly. In America, they may sue for the "intentional infliction of emotional distress." At Accident Group, the staff promptly ransacked the firm's offices and made off with computers and other equipment.

The Economist

Exercise 5. Translate the text paying attention to the underlined words.

Suitable Job for Two Why it is time to split the roles of chairman and CEO

If the events of the past year have taught the world anything about corporate America, it ought to be that the cult of the invincible chief executive, unfettered and unchallenged, is dead.

In their different ways, the experiences of Kenneth Lay, Jack Welch, Sandy Weill and a host of others have forced a rethink of the 1990s orthodoxy that placed the chief executive officer in a unique role at the helm of powerful companies.

The plentiful and painful tales of greed, venality and sheer ineptitude at the top of many US corporations require new means of ensuring proper accountability for CEOs.

Today directors of Walt Disney will get a chance to become the first to take a step that would improve accountability, restore investor confidence and set American boardrooms on a path to a more effective system of governance.

Disney's directors, concerned about the company's poor financial performance for the past few years, will be considering a package of reforms pressed by a number of activist shareholders. By far the most important and far-reaching of them is the proposal to split the roles of the company's chairman and chief executive officer, currently both held, in the standard practice of American boardrooms, by Michael Eisner.

Mr. Eisner should not take the proposal too personally. The case for dividing the two jobs is an overwhelming one — and not just at Disney.

The role of the chairman-CEO undermines the very structure of corporate accountability that a board of directors is supposed to provide. A chairman who also happens to run the company has come to regard the board as part of his own fief

In the absence of a genuinely independent chairman, independent directors lack a leadership figure to whom they can property express their concerns about corporate management.

Opponents of the idea say it would increase tension in boardrooms, weakening the cohesion and unity of purpose of the dynamic company.

But the problem in US companies in the past few years has been precisely the opposite: too little challenge to chief executives. And the British experience — where, for the past decade splitting the two roles has been the norm — has resulted in a significantly improved structure of governance.

Many American CEOs fear that, since the dual role is standard practice at most big US companies, giving up their chairmanship would look like accepting a vote of no confidence in their management of the company.

But it need not be interpreted that way. Good ideas have a way of becoming popular. Leading by example is what really good CEOs are supposed to do.

The Financial Times

Note

Kenneth Lay — former Chairman and CEO of toppled Enron.

Sandy Weill — Citigroup's former CEO.

Jack Welch — General Electric's CEO, now retired.

Translation Notes

Unfettered and unchallenged; plentiful and painful — в данном случае автор использовал аллитерацию. Аллитерация, то есть использование слов, начинающихся с одной и той же буквы, — один из древнейших стилистических средств в английском языке и передается в переводе в тех случаях, когда это целесообразно и возможно по условиям русского языка и когда аллитерация имеет ярко выраженную экспрессивную цель. Аллитерация может передаваться в русском языке словами на одну букву или с помощью стихотворной формы. Аллитерация лежит в основе многих фразеологизмов, но поскольку аллитерация не влияет на смысловую сторону, то, как правило, в переводе фразеологизмов она не передается. Например, safe and sound — жив и невредим, as cool as cucumber — невозмутимый, хладнокровный , fit as a fiddle — в полном порядке. То же самое относится к аллитерации, часто встречающейся в заголовках, таких как Wallowing in Wages, Merger Misery, An Overdose of Options, Basle Bust.

Exercise 6. Read and translate the text. Give a list of words that help the author to support the animalistic image of the corporate world.

Top Managers under Threat as Corporate Jungle

Evolves