Minnesota’s newest public company, Solventum, launched a round of layoffs Wednesday as CEO Bryan Hanson told employees the company is “creating an organization that is more nimble, more decentralized with less hierarchy.”
Hanson sent a video message to all 22,000 of the health care company’s employees early Wednesday morning to talk about “the elimination of certain jobs” and shifting “resources away from certain areas to focus on others,” the CEO said in the video, according to a transcript reviewed by the Minnesota Star Tribune.
The company confirmed in an emailed statement that it is cutting positions across divisions.
“These decisions were not taken lightly and affected employees are being supported,” the statement said. “We will continue to invest in our people and hire the talent we need into roles aligned to our strategic priorities.”
The number of job losses was not available beyond Hanson saying “the largest majority of our team members will not be directly impacted by these job losses or job eliminations.”
Nearly 1,200 people work for the company in the east metro. Several employees said the size of the layoff had not been communicated, even if it had hit their teams.
Hanson said in the video: “We may be eliminating these positions to refocus our investments, but that doesn’t mean that the team members in these impacted positions don’t matter. They absolutely do matter.”
“That doesn’t mean that we will never face tough decisions just like this one,” he said. “This is a challenging week, and I would just simply ask that you keep in mind that your colleagues may be experiencing different degrees of change right now.”
