redeployment

Intermediate 👥 Human Resources

Definition

Corporate doublespeak for reassigning employees to different roles when their current positions are eliminated, often against their will or abilities. It's like musical chairs, except when the music stops, you're now doing someone else's job.

Example Usage

After the merger, half the marketing team was 'redeployed' to customer service, despite having zero relevant experience.

Origin

Military logistics terminology adopted by HR during corporate restructurings in the 1980s

Fun Fact

Companies use 'redeployment' instead of 'reassignment' because it sounds more strategic and less like admitting they're making you do work you weren't hired for.

Source: Corporate restructuring terminology

Related Terms

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retention bonus

A payment incentive designed to keep critical employees from leaving during uncertain periods, paid upon reaching a specific future date. Bribery with a vesting schedule.

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negotiation

The delicate art of two or more parties pretending they have more options than they actually do until someone blinks first. In HR contexts, it's the formal dance between employer and employee where both sides know the salary range but spend weeks acting surprised by each other's numbers. Mastery of this skill requires equal parts poker face, patience, and the ability to say 'let me think about it' convincingly.

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mediated

The act of stepping into the middle of a conflict to resolve differences, ideally before lawyers get involved or someone updates their LinkedIn status to "It's complicated." Professional mediators facilitate settlements by getting both sides to actually listen to each other—a skill apparently so rare it requires certification. It's diplomacy with a process, and yes, someone's getting paid for it.

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managing out

The art of making an employee's job so unpleasant they quit voluntarily, avoiding the legal and financial costs of termination. It's constructive dismissal with a euphemistic name and plausible deniability.

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span of control

The number of direct reports a manager supervises, indicating how thinly their attention and favoritism will be spread. Too many subordinates means nobody gets managed; too few means micromanagement hell.

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job enrichment

Expanding a role to include higher-level responsibilities and decision-making authority to increase motivation and satisfaction. Unlike job enlargement, this actually adds meaningful work rather than just more work.

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