The restructuring of the agricultural chemicals and pharmaceutical company Bayer is in full swing. “The first departments have been postponed and we plan to have the majority of them completed by the end of the year,” said human resources manager Heike Prinz. “We’re in the middle of it.”
The plan is the central project of CEO Bill Anderson, who has been in office since June. Job cuts were announced in mid-January, particularly in management. Workflows should become more efficient and decisions should be simplified. There is a need for fewer coordination functions, i.e. “managers who manage managers, who manage managers,” said Prinz. Bayer currently has around 100,000 employees. It is unclear how many jobs will be lost.
It’s about faster innovation and better customer service, emphasized Anderson. “It will result in cost reductions because we will be removing many roles that do not provide direct value to customers.”
Bayer is in a difficult situation: glyphosate and PCB lawsuits in the USA are putting a strain on its balance sheet. PCB is an environmental chemical that has been banned for decades. Glyphosate, in turn, is a weed killer used in agriculture.
To make matters worse, Bayer’s previous best-in-class drugs are gradually bringing in less and less money, with no similarly lucrative follow-up drugs in sight. At the end of 2023, an important drug study flopped. The traditional company’s stock market price is in the basement.
