9 ms·

I've never understood the ways that modern companies handle layoffs- call people into a meeting room one by one, tell them they're being let go, then escort the

• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• kemiller2002 9y ago
  There are some valid reasons for it. It's sad the way that it happens, but I've been there on occasion where they didn't do that. One stats guy decided he was angry that it happened . . . . he started deleting all the loss curve data we needed off of the network. There was a hurry to stop him which resulted in the network staff having to unplug all the cables from the routers. Hours of having to put the cable back in and who know how much work was lost.
  • pc86 9y ago
    No amount of anger justifies that kind of behavior. If that's not criminal, it should be.
    • jerf 9y ago
      It is. If it ever crosses (generic-you) your mind to do that, don't. The revenge is very unlikely to be worth the very significant legal risk you are incurring. Stick to tradition and bad-mouth them with friends at a bar.
      • skocznymroczny 9y ago
        or write an angry blog post
        • EGreg 9y ago
          or start a rival company and put them out of business, by slowly taking away all their main clients and then winning a case in court overturning the noncompete agreement using legal precedents in your state. That escalated quickly, no? :)
    • oblio 9y ago
      I'm pretty sure that's a criminal offense in most countries in the world. You're destroying company property, at least. It's the best way to destroy your career and really become unemployable, even if you don't go to jail.
  • enraged_camel 9y ago
    What you need to do immediately before informing an employee that you are letting them go is revoke their access to critical systems and/or disable their accounts. That way, you can allow them to go back to their desk and say their goodbyes to their coworkers without risking them doing silly stuff like delete data.
    • muninn_ 9y ago
      Or, you just ghost people. Walk in one day and your badge doesn't work. Or you somehow get in and you can't log on "sorry ma'am can't find you in the system here". Didn't Twitter do something like that recently? Although, begrudgingly I agree that it's something that should probably be done if you know somebody is being let go.
      • iaskwhy 9y ago
        This happened to me once. I was not allowed in the building so I called a colleague to bring me in as a visitor. Upon trying to login, "account has been disabled". Called IT, "you've been fired". Called my line manager, "I have no idea what you're talking about". Turns out someone forgot to extend my contract on the system.
        • Chris2048 9y ago
          If that's the case, the IT person was a dick to tell you / assume you'd been fired.
    • jermaustin1 9y ago
      This leads to people who are sick finding out before they are fired, that they are fired. Happened at a client's place a couple years ago, they letting go of all the senior sysadmins, killed their credentials, then fired them. 2 of the admins were out sick, and they lost their email, and their access to the monitoring tools. When the employees came in, they were escorted by "guards" to get their stuff, and not allowed to say goodbye to anyone. That said, they were allowed in the next day as a guest with no issues. Company's assume the worst of people so they put in all these policies and procedures instead of treating adults like adults. If the adult decided to delete something. Charge them with a crime. I would go ahead and guess that no one that was laid off in that time would have done something so brazen. Last I had lunch with any of them, they were doing better in their new gigs. More money or freedom.
• pc86 9y ago
  Someone is losing their job unexpectedly. Nearly everyone spends too much of their income and saves too little for retirement/emergencies, so losing your job unexpectedly can have devastating financial consequences. Even bouncing back and finding another job could set your retirement back years if it doesn't happen quickly enough, and ruin your credit if you don't have appropriate savings. I don't think there's a way to make it "more human." The opposite extreme of your scenario is bringing everyone (either on site, or everyone getting laid off) into a room and break the news in one shot. I've had coworkers who have been laid off in the "put everyone in a room" way. 60 people told at the same time their position had been eliminated, leave their badge at the door on the way out. That's not any less cold. I'd argue individually telling folks is better. It lets people have an emotional reaction if they need to, and not have to worry about the other dozens of people around them. If you need to lay off many people at once, there is no good way to do it.
  • jacobr1 9y ago
    The way to make it more humane is a generous severance.
    • pc86 9y ago
      Severance just accelerates the firing process. If you've got to provide 3 months severance, you're laying people off at least 3 months sooner than you otherwise would. I'm sure there have been companies contemplating layoffs that have been able to just barely make numbers to avoid it. Not arguing against severance just saying that "well throw some money at them" doesn't necessarily make it any better.
      • syshum 9y ago
        It does not make it better for the companies, but it does make it MUCH better for the employee, as they now have 3 months to find a job before having to dip into any savings, retirement, or make painful phone calls to creditors looking for payment forgiveness and other things Companies generally do not tell you 3 mos in advance you are being laid off, so if there is no severance then you are blind sided and are instantly with out income I would much rather my layoff come 3mos sooner and have 3 months to look for a job before having no income, then been "allowed" to continue to work 3 months longer with no severance
• pavlov 9y ago
  Immediately escorting fired employees out of the building is an extremely aggressive signal, and I don't know if it gets used much outside of USA. It's possible to do layoffs in a completely different way, but it takes time and management patience. When Nokia fired thousands of employees back in 2011-13, they created a program called Bridge that offered former employees seed money to create startups, and even the possibility to negotiate for a spin-off license of IP assets created at Nokia: https://www.google.fi/amp/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/inside-nokia-bridge-how-nokia-funds-ex-employees-new-start-ups/ https://www.google.fi/amp/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/i... It seems that the program was a success by any measure. Nokia is still around and doing better than in a long time, after shedding the mobile phone albatross to Steve Ballmer for an inflated price.
  • jerry40 9y ago
    >Immediately escorting fired employees out of the building is an extremely aggressive signal, and I don't know if it gets used much outside of USA. I saw that in Moscow in 2008 (one big investment bank fired several guys from our team in 20-30 minutes in front of my eyes). It was very unusual. They did now allow a fired person to touch his computer after firing him.
    • EGreg 9y ago
      Next: escorting fired people at gunpoint with guards ready to... fire!
      • jerry40 9y ago
        It is too expensive... Just kiddnig. They paid fired people compensation for 2 months though.
    • JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      My buddy was in his cubicle, then the network went down. Everybody was standing in the aisles chatting about it, milling around, and HR showed up. Read a list of names, got them in a group, escorted them out of the building. Then the network came back up. Back to work!
• baursak 9y ago
  > I don't know what a better way would be, but I'd sure like to see some innovation in that space. Something less cold, something more human. It might help to remember that fundamentally, modern corporations are top-down totalitarian regimes, and adjust your expectations accordingly.
  • emodendroket 9y ago
    Sure, but there's no fundamental law of the universe that says we have to just accept that unconditionally and let them do whatever they please.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • redleggedfrog 9y ago
      Or you need a revolution to overthrow the totalitarian regime(s). Just saying, there's always options, just depends on how motivated you are to change things.
      • ColanR 9y ago
        It's called a startup.
    • baursak 9y ago
      You're right, capitalism is not a fundamental law of the universe.
      • emodendroket 9y ago
        Even without abandoning a generally capitalist framework you can impose restrictions on what corporations can do. Even among countries with a capitalist system the American system is unique in how easy it is to fire people.
• eecc 9y ago
  I think the problem is with the ubiquity of firearms in the USA; you want to escort someone out of the building before he/she tilts and starts shooting other people, starting from the manager that just threw them under the bus...
  • camiller 9y ago
    Most US businesses prohibit employees from bringing firearms to work, usually when there is an office shooting the fired employee has returned, often days later, for his revenge. Really does not impact the day of dismissal. Edit: ...and does not happen often.
    • eecc 9y ago
      I'm no expert, but I understand you have government licenses to carry (even concealed) so how can a private entity interfere with those? Anyhow whatever...
      • soneil 9y ago
        It falls under the same umbrella as trespassing. You have permission to remain on private property within set rules. From a legal point of view, it’s no different to “no shirt no service”. (yes, even with a permit. I have a government-issued license to operate a couple of classes of motor vehicle. You're perfectly entitled to forbid me from doing so on your property.)
        • ryandrake 9y ago
          I once worked at a place where a few of the guys organized an informal "bring your gun to work day" each week, where we'd go target shooting after work. Well at some point corporate got wind of it and, of course, freaked out and banned it. We had enough people who objected to the ban to make a stink of it (I hesitate to say we were "up in arms over it"), and eventually after negotiation we agreed to keep everything locked up in our cars in the parking lot.
      • 9y ago
• skocznymroczny 9y ago
  I think it's mostly an American thing. In Poland (and probably other European countries), under a normal work contract, you are told in advance about being laid off, at least two weeks I think. It gives you enough time to look for another job, and it gives you time to pass your work to your coworkers. No one really does retaliation here, it's all done in a mostly peaceful atmosphere, the laid off employee is trying to finish what he started and pass on the work to the person that will replace him.
  • thedarkproject 9y ago
    In Switzerland it's usually 2-3 months notice, for both sides. Depends on what's written in your contract. But escorting people out after firing them seems very harsh and overdramatic to me. Never heard of such things in Europe.
    • hyeonwho2 9y ago
      Rationally, the company is trying to avoid employees stealing IP, corrupting files, and sabotaging work. But the social signal it sends is "we don't trust our employees, respect them as people, or value their original contributions to our business. They are just replaceable cogs in our machine."
      • syshum 9y ago
        >>>They are just replaceable cogs in our machine. Which matches how most corporations see their employees They are Human Resources, to be consumed like any other resource
  • camiller 9y ago
    I'm in the US, and on a contract sure, as a contractor I was once told 7 weeks before that my contract was not being continued (new CIO put a freeze on all new hiring/contracts/contract extensions while they evaluated workload). That contract had already been extended twice. Also once, as an employee not a contractor, I was laid off and while I was given time to say some farewells to colleagues I was politely asked not to attempt to log in. I had worked there long enough that I received 6 months severance pay so I had time to get another job. FWIW, All of my career has been in the American mid-west in "employment at will" states. I've never been asked to sign a contract as an normal employee.
• JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Last layoff I saw happen (I survived), they emailed the people being layed off and told them to meet in a conference room. So as all of them got up, they noticed the rest of us staying. We all instantly knew. 15 minutes later, they all come walking back to get their personal items with armed security guards patrolling (maybe a dozen). I started looking for my next job that day. I don't want to work for a company that does that to people. Yes, layoffs happen, but 1) NO management got layed off. 2) Treating people like this during the layoff (armed guards, herding them into a room together), is just disgusting.
  • weberc2 9y ago
    Where do you work that has armed security guards? The government?
    • JustSomeNobody 9y ago
      They hired them just to monitor the situation. The people there could not have been a more docile bunch if you drugged them, which made it all the more painful to watch.
  • gaius 9y ago
    One company I worked for had people come to meeting room 1 or 2. When room 2 was full they locked the door, opened the fire escape and told those people they were laid off and to leave now...
  • borplk 9y ago
    It's the ugly truth about the relationship with an employer. Some just manage to hide it better.
• 11thEarlOfMar 9y ago
  I once had a manager get into a fist fight with the engineer he was laying off. The HR manager was in the room at the time. When management gets together to decide how to handle the notice, the legal department weighs in and says that you have to handle all notices in the same way so you don't create any discrimination liability, and, you have to anticipate the worst case situation where the employee becomes violent. So you wind up with security escorting the just-fired employees out of the building.
• LanceH 9y ago
  Call a company meeting. Tell everyone who is staying to sneak out before hand and not attend the meeting. Lay off everyone at the meeting while you lock them out of their computers. Do this on the last day of the month so nobody has insurance the next day.
• kumarvvr 9y ago
  It's because as far as the company is concerned, the employee and his neighbor are replaceable commodities, with their replacements able to handle their work with minimum business impact. That is how it is in most of the roles in most of the IT companies in India. They are in the services field, not the innovation or product or value addition field. In industries where the company values the employee, this hardly happens. Of course I am excluding employees who have considerable access or reach, who can cause significant business impact, ex. financial sector. But, whatever the company thinks of it's employees, it's a good practice to not humiliate the employee. Suing also doesn't work in India. So a service job in the IT sector is only a slight degree away from bonded labor.
• rabboRubble 9y ago
  I've seen this in other countries, where the person asked to leave had authority over outgoing payments, trades, contract signing, critical systems access, etc. that sort of thing. If you terminate such a person without some preparation, they can go back to their desk and do mischievous things. That's the idea behind this.
• smithsmith 9y ago
  The best way is for the company to tell in a few lines that this is all they can do due to market pressure and any possible helps they can offer over mail. Its pointless to call in to a room and deliver through hr which creates unease to both humans.