One of the things I think is most important is that employees should not be utterly surprised if layoffs occur. They should be well informed, and invested enou

One of the things I think is most important is that employees should not be utterly surprised if layoffs occur. They should be well informed, and invested enough in the company to be aware that the company is having problems. Senior management should be communicating company performance long before layoffs are needed. I've now seen several examples in small companies where the CEO has held back the bad news until layoffs were required, and the morale of the remaining employees was much worse than it should have been because of it.