7 ms·

Let’s say you are an employee at a company that does mass layoffs. They do not lay you off like everyone else and keep you on. What is the best course of action

Let’s say you are an employee at a company that does mass layoffs. They do not lay you off like everyone else and keep you on. What is the best course of action to take at that point?

iLoveOncall 4y ago
Looking for a new job. The advice to "take the first layoff" is weird, you rarely have a choice, if ever.
- eschneider 4y ago
  The advice isn't so much "take the first layoff", it's "next time will be worse."
- lumost 4y ago
  If you say that you aren’t plussed, then they will probably lay you off to.
- jaredandrews 4y ago
  True but there are exceptions. At a previous job of mine, layoffs were happening and my manager was tasked with laying off one member of my team. He sat us in a room and told us about it and the severance package and basically asked for a volunteer. A more senior engineer volunteered and went on his way with a good chunk of cash. Oh how I wish I had volunteered cuz a year later basically everyone including me had quit anyway.
- stanmancan 4y ago
  The last job I had they offered very generous buy out packages to a few thousand employees to lower the head count. We got to decide if we took it or not. id you accepted they would then figure out your exit date which could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 12 months out depending on company needs.
- gangstead 4y ago
  I don't know if it's an industry specific thing but my parents worked for big defense contractors and they would often talk about layoffs in conjunction with offers that people could take to leave voluntarily. Always signed crazy to me. My mom took one in 99, worked private industry for a couple years then came back to defense after the dot com crash for way more money.
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  It depends on where you work. But I've definitely been at a place where the first email was "we've decided to reduce staff in key functions, please read the attached offering and submit directly to your manager". This was a reasonably generous package, in one case health benefits would be maintained for nearly a year even if you had only worked there 3 years. The next round was a security guy waiting in your office with a box and a packet of information about how to apply for unemployment.
Consultant32452 4y ago
When this happens I'm always expected to take on more work without a commensurate raise. That's why I always leave.
eschneider 4y ago
If you have any doubts about the company, you probably want to get serious about your job search.
- kevstev 4y ago
  To expand on why, what often happens after these is there now a round of "cost cutting" which on the surface may look like ok we just don't get as many, or any of the cool perks we used to- which will be true, and you will suddenly realize that work doesn't feel like it has a fun aspect to it anymore. But that's really nothing compared to the next step- when they start squeezing you- and everyone for more hours. And more hours may not be a direct request- anyone at the periphery of the dev process- in the past this was QA, now gets cut because devs can do it, SWE roles might have to start doing more ops work, etc... When I last left the financial industry, it was so bad, that VPs- and that was back when it least had some meaning- at least it did when I first got the title around 2010, started having to do mundane weekend work like checking out the system after network/firewall changes, etc. It can be death by a thousand cuts. Now the financial crisis was way worse because essentially everyone was hurting, and losing money- and interestingly I "got out" of that bad situation by going to tech. But that's just how these bad situations play out and deteriorate. That said, companies are still profitable. There was a LOT of overhiring in the past few years. I don't expect things to get so bad, at all.
Bluecobra 4y ago
I’d start looking for a new job.
- ransom1538 4y ago
  As a recruiter told me, "I can add your resume to the pile." There are too many resumes in circulation right now.
  - smcl 4y ago
    I wonder if this mean a dearth of positions (i.e. a tech downturn is fully underway) or simply loads of applicants and enough open positions, but the recruiters are a bit inundated by the sudden influx and it'll take time to sort things out. Either way I hope those laid off land on their feet.
satysin 4y ago
Ask if there are VRIF (voluntary reduction in force) options open to you. Most of the time there are unless you have some kind of "special" status. I've never known a company that is in the process of layoffs not jumping at the chance to VRIF an employee because it is a far cleaner termination and honestly less stressful and upsetting for all involved IMHO.
- breischl 4y ago
  In general you're probably right. Though once upon a time I tried to volunteer about three different times and never managed to get a package. At one point my manager literally said "Shut up, you're not getting laid off so quit asking!"
- noobermin 4y ago
  But isn't there an incentive not to do it given the payout they'd have to pay for someone so senior?
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    Keeping them around is expensive too.
    - alecbz 4y ago
      But if the senior person is in a role that the company ultimately wants staffed, they're going to need to hire someone else to replace them, who will be new and less effective? (Though OTOH, given the current macro, maybe they can get away with paying the replacement less?)
  - satysin 4y ago
    In my personal experience some random senior employee isn't even pennies on the dollar when it comes to the total amount factored into the layoffs that are in the hundreds of millions. The bigger factor is are you in a position that requires the company longer to replace you? If so you may just be in that shit position of being kept on another 6 months until the next round of layoffs and get a package half as good. As the first poster said always get out first if you can as the packages never get better the worse a company does. Never fool yourself into thinking you're too amazing to be let go and that is why you 'survived' this round of layoffs. The worst case is as I said, you are too good to be let go of yet.
ptero 4y ago
Prep hard. My 2c below, not trying to tell you how to live life :) 1. Review your finances. How long can you skip work without feeling financially stressed? This should include full expenses (medical insurance, family, etc.) and will determine the level of risk you can comfortably take with your job. If you have 5+ years of cushion you can take a lot of risk. Even if the job market and your company both collapse you can downshift for a year or two and work on a new tech as a personal project. Droughts seldom last more than a couple of years. If you have less than 3 months of cushion, look for the lowest risk options (a strongest company you can work for) and try to build it up. 2. Decide whether you expect your current company to do well with the reduced headcount. If your company is publicly traded, read financial statements and analyst opinions try joining an investor call. Look at the outside information, not the HR infomercials. If the company is expected to do well you can stay. Layoffs in strong companies often mean shakeouts beyond actual layoffs (teams merging and forming, etc.) and you might even be able to move to a better spot. If the company is in trouble, start looking for other options ASAP. 3. Learn what is the job market for your skills and if any adjacent areas have significantly better prospects (if so, buff up your skills). This can change quickly. Talk to your tech friends, especially those in hiring manager spots, to figure out if they are hiring/frozen/RIFfing.
- robocat 4y ago
  > If you have 5+ years of cushion you can take a lot of risk. In my own experience I think this is a dangerous attitude: anny other HNers out there that thought this and failed, maybe add a comment about your own experience? I thought I had cushion. However that attitude led to me reseting my equity to zero when I was about 30, and it took more than a decade of my life before I felt like I was starting to recover. Perhaps sometimes we had some luck, so we get some savings, and we then think “that was easy, I could do that again” and try something risky. But the environment or our circumstances have changed, and we can’t always replicate our past. The other aspect is that I think we underestimate risk: for example when I was younger I would think creating a business worth a million dollars would be unbelievably great. Now I see that opportunity costs of a $X00,000 loss of income require a 10x return ($X million) to break even (to only just cover your risks). Also you need wayyyy more return than 10x to cover the fact that your time investment is not diversified: a 10x return on a game you can only play a few times is a massive gamble that you end up with nothing. You don’t want to end up with nothing after say 40, because the world starts to randomly switch into extremely-hard-mode sometime after ~40 (and everybody is unaware they were playing on easy-mode until after the switch changes).
ouid 4y ago
I dont know the law here, but it seems you can ask to review your contract, and insist that they include a minimum employment term or guarantee a severance package. They have two ways to say no. They can fire you then, in which case you get the severance, or you're free to look for another job in the period before they're no longer legally obligated to give you severance. It seems that you should take as much advantage as possible of your legal status.
eschneider 4y ago
Well, if you're in a 'critical' position and you want to take a more 'wait and see' approach, retention bonuses are usually a thing for folks they don't want to lose in a first-round layoff. You approach that conversation like so, "I really love it here, but with the layoffs and uncertainty..."
eschneider 4y ago
Ask for a retention bonus.

Let’s say you are an employee at a company that does mass layoffs. They do not lay you off like everyone else and keep you on. What is the best course of action to take at that point?

iLoveOncall 4y ago

Looking for a new job. The advice to "take the first layoff" is weird, you rarely have a choice, if ever.

eschneider 4y ago
The advice isn't so much "take the first layoff", it's "next time will be worse."
lumost 4y ago
If you say that you aren’t plussed, then they will probably lay you off to.
jaredandrews 4y ago
True but there are exceptions. At a previous job of mine, layoffs were happening and my manager was tasked with laying off one member of my team. He sat us in a room and told us about it and the severance package and basically asked for a volunteer. A more senior engineer volunteered and went on his way with a good chunk of cash. Oh how I wish I had volunteered cuz a year later basically everyone including me had quit anyway.
stanmancan 4y ago
The last job I had they offered very generous buy out packages to a few thousand employees to lower the head count. We got to decide if we took it or not. id you accepted they would then figure out your exit date which could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 12 months out depending on company needs.
gangstead 4y ago
I don't know if it's an industry specific thing but my parents worked for big defense contractors and they would often talk about layoffs in conjunction with offers that people could take to leave voluntarily. Always signed crazy to me. My mom took one in 99, worked private industry for a couple years then came back to defense after the dot com crash for way more money.
sidewndr46 4y ago
It depends on where you work. But I've definitely been at a place where the first email was "we've decided to reduce staff in key functions, please read the attached offering and submit directly to your manager". This was a reasonably generous package, in one case health benefits would be maintained for nearly a year even if you had only worked there 3 years. The next round was a security guy waiting in your office with a box and a packet of information about how to apply for unemployment.

Consultant32452 4y ago

When this happens I'm always expected to take on more work without a commensurate raise. That's why I always leave.

eschneider 4y ago

If you have any doubts about the company, you probably want to get serious about your job search.

kevstev 4y ago
To expand on why, what often happens after these is there now a round of "cost cutting" which on the surface may look like ok we just don't get as many, or any of the cool perks we used to- which will be true, and you will suddenly realize that work doesn't feel like it has a fun aspect to it anymore. But that's really nothing compared to the next step- when they start squeezing you- and everyone for more hours. And more hours may not be a direct request- anyone at the periphery of the dev process- in the past this was QA, now gets cut because devs can do it, SWE roles might have to start doing more ops work, etc... When I last left the financial industry, it was so bad, that VPs- and that was back when it least had some meaning- at least it did when I first got the title around 2010, started having to do mundane weekend work like checking out the system after network/firewall changes, etc. It can be death by a thousand cuts. Now the financial crisis was way worse because essentially everyone was hurting, and losing money- and interestingly I "got out" of that bad situation by going to tech. But that's just how these bad situations play out and deteriorate. That said, companies are still profitable. There was a LOT of overhiring in the past few years. I don't expect things to get so bad, at all.

Bluecobra 4y ago

I’d start looking for a new job.

ransom1538 4y ago
As a recruiter told me, "I can add your resume to the pile." There are too many resumes in circulation right now.
- smcl 4y ago
  I wonder if this mean a dearth of positions (i.e. a tech downturn is fully underway) or simply loads of applicants and enough open positions, but the recruiters are a bit inundated by the sudden influx and it'll take time to sort things out. Either way I hope those laid off land on their feet.

satysin 4y ago

Ask if there are VRIF (voluntary reduction in force) options open to you. Most of the time there are unless you have some kind of "special" status. I've never known a company that is in the process of layoffs not jumping at the chance to VRIF an employee because it is a far cleaner termination and honestly less stressful and upsetting for all involved IMHO.

breischl 4y ago
In general you're probably right. Though once upon a time I tried to volunteer about three different times and never managed to get a package. At one point my manager literally said "Shut up, you're not getting laid off so quit asking!"
noobermin 4y ago
But isn't there an incentive not to do it given the payout they'd have to pay for someone so senior?
- mywittyname 4y ago
  Keeping them around is expensive too.
  - alecbz 4y ago
    But if the senior person is in a role that the company ultimately wants staffed, they're going to need to hire someone else to replace them, who will be new and less effective? (Though OTOH, given the current macro, maybe they can get away with paying the replacement less?)
- satysin 4y ago
  In my personal experience some random senior employee isn't even pennies on the dollar when it comes to the total amount factored into the layoffs that are in the hundreds of millions. The bigger factor is are you in a position that requires the company longer to replace you? If so you may just be in that shit position of being kept on another 6 months until the next round of layoffs and get a package half as good. As the first poster said always get out first if you can as the packages never get better the worse a company does. Never fool yourself into thinking you're too amazing to be let go and that is why you 'survived' this round of layoffs. The worst case is as I said, you are too good to be let go of yet.

ptero 4y ago

Prep hard. My 2c below, not trying to tell you how to live life :) 1. Review your finances. How long can you skip work without feeling financially stressed? This should include full expenses (medical insurance, family, etc.) and will determine the level of risk you can comfortably take with your job. If you have 5+ years of cushion you can take a lot of risk. Even if the job market and your company both collapse you can downshift for a year or two and work on a new tech as a personal project. Droughts seldom last more than a couple of years. If you have less than 3 months of cushion, look for the lowest risk options (a strongest company you can work for) and try to build it up. 2. Decide whether you expect your current company to do well with the reduced headcount. If your company is publicly traded, read financial statements and analyst opinions try joining an investor call. Look at the outside information, not the HR infomercials. If the company is expected to do well you can stay. Layoffs in strong companies often mean shakeouts beyond actual layoffs (teams merging and forming, etc.) and you might even be able to move to a better spot. If the company is in trouble, start looking for other options ASAP. 3. Learn what is the job market for your skills and if any adjacent areas have significantly better prospects (if so, buff up your skills). This can change quickly. Talk to your tech friends, especially those in hiring manager spots, to figure out if they are hiring/frozen/RIFfing.

robocat 4y ago
> If you have 5+ years of cushion you can take a lot of risk. In my own experience I think this is a dangerous attitude: anny other HNers out there that thought this and failed, maybe add a comment about your own experience? I thought I had cushion. However that attitude led to me reseting my equity to zero when I was about 30, and it took more than a decade of my life before I felt like I was starting to recover. Perhaps sometimes we had some luck, so we get some savings, and we then think “that was easy, I could do that again” and try something risky. But the environment or our circumstances have changed, and we can’t always replicate our past. The other aspect is that I think we underestimate risk: for example when I was younger I would think creating a business worth a million dollars would be unbelievably great. Now I see that opportunity costs of a $X00,000 loss of income require a 10x return ($X million) to break even (to only just cover your risks). Also you need wayyyy more return than 10x to cover the fact that your time investment is not diversified: a 10x return on a game you can only play a few times is a massive gamble that you end up with nothing. You don’t want to end up with nothing after say 40, because the world starts to randomly switch into extremely-hard-mode sometime after ~40 (and everybody is unaware they were playing on easy-mode until after the switch changes).

ouid 4y ago

I dont know the law here, but it seems you can ask to review your contract, and insist that they include a minimum employment term or guarantee a severance package. They have two ways to say no. They can fire you then, in which case you get the severance, or you're free to look for another job in the period before they're no longer legally obligated to give you severance. It seems that you should take as much advantage as possible of your legal status.

eschneider 4y ago

Well, if you're in a 'critical' position and you want to take a more 'wait and see' approach, retention bonuses are usually a thing for folks they don't want to lose in a first-round layoff. You approach that conversation like so, "I really love it here, but with the layoffs and uncertainty..."

eschneider 4y ago

Ask for a retention bonus.