Suspended 401k matches may not come back

The best paying companies, including perks & salary will always attract the best employees. Therefore if you would like to hire & retain qualified people that will help generate revenue for your company, you will have to compensate them.

If you want to hire dreck, and pay them lowly wages, that is what you will get in return.

I am outperforming my peers, because if the owner of my company decides to do away with our division, he will have to think long & hard before he lets me go. I work hard, drive for results, and try to make myself a solid contribiutor to the revenue stream.

That's all I can do. But on the flip side, when the economy recovers, employess that put up with BS, will be the first to walk out the door for a better opportunity.

The folks that point out that the best companies will treat their employees right, to get the best employees and performance in the long term are correct IN THEORY.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of companies are embarking on a short term profitability seeking mode, and hollowing themselves out in the long run - and treating their employees badly to save on costs in the bargain.

IBM, which I worked at is a case in point.   Around '93 when they were losing money, they went into a cost cutting mode and started cutting out the deadwood employees who were far too complacent.

(This was under the Louis Gerstner term - he's the guy who in his book took ALL the credit for IBM's success during his tenure. he had one skill - angering good employees. Brilliant.)

Well, this made sense for about 10% to 20% of the employees, and some of the low-hanging-fruit type of costs.  The problem was they never stopped this behavior.  After a while, the very best folks started leaving, then many of the best started leaving in droves.  Then the loyalty of the remaining employees along with their hard work, and great treatment of the customers went and the customers noticed, but it was too late by then.

In the mean time - the bulk of the managers were switched to marketing types who had NO CLUE about the technologies they were managing.  Thus they had NO credibility with their employees, and made terrible decisions (based on their arrogance instead of technical input). Highly skilled employees were largely undifferentiated as to their performance ratings, and even told they were just "cogs in a wheel" by some senior management, which removed any last credibility in claiming "pay for performance".

The result is a hollowed out company with very little employee loyalty left - which is managing short term profits by outsourcing all the labor they can to cheap places like India and China - and turning everything into short term piecework management of projects.

The results are predictable -- the work doesn't get done, or gets done poorly, and what was deemed critical in the past is just ignored when it isn't done. 

As a result (unsurprisingly) you have fiascos like the current situation with the state of Indiana Medicare system in a recent article - repeated with MANY customers in IGS, and this was something that many good techs like myself pointed out repeatedly but were told to basically shut up.  I can confidently predict IBM will LOSE that contract as they generally do little more than give lip service to screwed up accounts - I watched that behavior for a decade.

Reading the book "White Collar Sweatshop" confirmed my suspicion that among large companies, this type of scenario has, and is being played out across the majority of the 80-odd million American white collar workers - most working in large companies.  

In this scenario, things like cutting 401-K matches is all too typical.

I'm sure glad I saved and could retire early.  I feel bad for those forced to endure the typical company in today's work force. 

Companies that do this stuff and end up all screwed up only have themselves to blame - but they're run by management too blind to see it or are not dedicated enough to fight for the principle if they do see it.

It's kind of funny - IBM would be a great long term short (though they may be able to successfully play their game for another 5 years or so with outsourcing) - but since the VAST majority of large companies are engages in the same stupid behavior - they may look fine in comparison.