Yes. However the upper management doesn’t care about that. They look at some figures and then go on to make up whatever savings they want the middle managers to do without regard to whether those idea will improve the figures. It’s a shot in the dark.

Now…if you’re in a civilised country where union agreements are well in place , it’s possible to require a coalition group, where middle management and employee representatives sit down to have a dialogue of what is best practice. More often than not this leads to improved figures, so the upper management don’t ever need to dig into the details but can spend time doing their actual job of making long term strategies.

Yes, that way it pays off for employers to have union agreements. They just don’t see it before they do it.