Human Resource Downsizing


St. Lawrence Cement Group inc.This company which was recently taken over by Holcim Ltd., plans to close its head office in Montreal and transfer some operations to Ontario in a move that will affect 80 employees. The Montreal-based company will also transfer its Northeast U.S. assets to Holcim, and will reorganize its corporate, administrative and information technology services. All St. Lawrence corporate administrative functions will be integrated into the existing offices of the regional headquarters in Concord, Ont., just north of Toronto. Employees at the regional headquarters in Longueuil, Que., as well as those at the company’s other Quebec operations will not be affected.

“Following the buyout of the minority shareholders, we are re-configuring the organization on a geographic basis,” said Gaetan Jacques, senior vice president of human resources and communications. “We are transferring our Northeast U.S. division to Holcim U.S. (and) now we will be a Canadian focused organization with two major regions — one in Ontario, one in Quebec and Atlantic,” said Jacques. “We will have two main offices, one in Longeuil and one in Concord.” The cuts affect people working in the finance, human resources and information technology departments, as well as a small group from manufacturing engineering facilities, he said, adding no other major cuts are planned.“We are an organization that focuses on synergies and costs (but) we don’t have in our plans right now any other big reorganization or downsizing plan,” Jacques said. “There will be some adjustments, that’s part of normal business, but there’s nothing else that is being planned right now.” Once the reorganization is complete, St. Lawrence Cement will offer some of the affected employees the opportunity to transfer to Concord, while others will be offered professional assistance services to help them find new jobs.

A company would really undergo downsizing due to some circumstances that they encouterthough some of thier employees lose thier job but they need to take the risk for the company to be competitive in the industry. It is not an easy decision for the company but its part of the circulation to survive.

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