Originally published on Dec. 22, 2008 at www.timpconnelly.wordpress.com

Best Buy is taking a beating from this recession and layoffs – er, sorry, I mean “headcount reductions” – are necessary to keep the ship afloat long enough to take advantage of what promises to be a much improved marketplace position on the other side of the downturn.

So here we go. HR and finance people will do the math around employees who opted for the sweetened buyout package (25 percent enhancement on a temporarily more robust regular severance package), intentions for which must be declared by Jan. 5. Then they’ll see what (i.e. who and how many) needs to be cut to reach the overall savings objective. Voluntary departers’ last day is Feb. 12. The pumped up severance packages expire Feb. 19, and the fiscal year ends Feb. 28 – so it’s not difficult to fit the layoff timeline into a fairly narrow window.

So how many are going to be cut in what word has it will be a deep, painful excision? That depends on who and how many accept the buyout package. Obviously, a senior executive salary is worth several (a dozen, perhaps?) entry level positions.

The money math is algebraically simple: x + y = z, where x is the amount of savings generated by employees taking the voluntary package, y is the savings of the impending layoff, and z is the uber savings objective. Unfortunately, x is unknown, and z is a secret – so solving for y is tough. We know the number of heads to be lopped off the payroll will be determined by the dollar size of z – x. So the involuntary equation is simple: z – x = y.

Which brings me to my timing. I left IBM in August for the opportunities at Best Buy. I’d built a fairly successful personal brand in my nine-plus years at Big Blue and was comfortable. By the time I packed up and left, I felt stale, unchallenged, pigeon-holed and pretty disillusioned (that’s a whole ‘nother post), so when the chance to learn and grow and try something exciting and different at Best Buy came up, I jumped.

Helluva time to dive into retail.

So now, like just about everyone else at corporate HQ, I have to wait two anxious months to see if I go from comfortable but unchallenged, to challenged, uncomfortable and quite unemployed – in  six months on the nose.

Making it all that much more exciting is my role on the communications team tasked with communicating all these complexities to the masses. Comms types are often called upon to plan and develop communications around these activities, while not knowing their own future. I suppose the ultimate irony is being handed a severance package that you helped create. Interesting times, these.

Onward.