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CHAPTER 13
A Swedish programme for phasing out older employees based on consent and social responsibility 257

Our interviews indicate that military officers show a high degree of
organisational commitment, while trust may be declining due to ongoing
organisational changes, in particular among commanding officers. Planned
restructuring in our case study may well in the near future mean to many
officers in the organisation that it is their own environment and employment
that is endangered; levels of commitment and trust may then fall dramatically,
and interest in career switching will likely increase.

13.5.4. An alternative strategy: the case of Ericsson
Career change is not an entirely new concept in the Swedish labour market.
For instance, it has been applied in public service when organisations need
to downsize. There are consultants offering programmes in outplacement.
However, voluntary downsizing of one age group combined with recruitment
of another can be found in only one major project, the career change project,
carried out at Ericsson Microwave Systems in Göteborg, Sweden, in 2003/04.
Personnel were reduced (500 left voluntarily) in some technological areas,
and replaced (100 recruited) with fresh staff in other areas. Managers were
instructed to have eight coaching talks with every employee, who would reflect
over the situation and their future career, and then decide whether or not to
stay. Those who made the choice to leave were given one to two yearsʼ pay
and personal coaching to find a new job. Older employees were offered paid
leave. At the end, the company thought they had been successful at 25%
lower cost than if they had fired employees right off, and they had preserved
good relationships with trade unions (Bergström and Diedrich, 2006).
There were clear differences between the armed forces and Ericsson
projects with respect to clarity and content of the offer, and how information
was handled. In the armed forces, information was curtailed at unit level, due
to down prioritising by commanding officers, while at Ericsson it appears no
such resistance took place; middle management was directly involved and
carried a main responsibility throughout the process. In the armed forces,
career switching was introduced at the same time as major organisational
changes dominated the discussion, while at Ericsson the project could be
given maximal visibility. The project at Ericsson Microwave Systems was also
carried out in a given time period, unlike the career switching project that
already from the outset was seen as a long process. There was also confusion
in the career switching project on what exactly it meant if you applied. Do I
dare talk to my supervisors about career development? Perhaps I will then be
switched. This was clear and unambiguous at Ericsson.
An important aspect in comparing the two cases is that in the Ericsson