5 ms·

How do I lay people off?

20 points by wheels 18y ago

cmos 18y ago
When people talk about how starting a company will bring you to the best and worst times of your life, this would be in the 'worst' category. Spend time working your contacts to help them find another job. Your the one that screwed up, not them. Don't be afraid to say that.
Fuca 18y ago
Tell them Monday that Friday its their last day.
- lacker 18y ago
  I hope you're kidding! Keeping a bunch of pissed off soon-to-be-ex-employees around the workplace isn't good for anyone. The best you can do is to lay people off on Friday morning so at least they can be with your friends and family over the weekend for support.
  - jm4 18y ago
    I think early in the week is the best way - at least when firing people. If you let someone go on Monday or Tuesday they can immediately start looking for a new job the next morning. With any luck maybe they can start getting callbacks or a phone interview before the end of the week. That goes a long way toward boosting morale. The weekend makes it a little more difficult. Sure, they can update their resumes, apply online, etc., but that kind of ruins the weekend and leaves a lot of time to start feeling hopeless or really pissed off. Plus, some people might not mind so much if you tell them first thing Monday morning that they have to go home. :)
iigs 18y ago
It's great advice but may as well have been written in hieroglyphics, personally I've never seen it taken (three rounds across two companies + missed payroll during bankruptcy once). I posit that the reason for this, in tech anyway, is that employees are generally in one of two categories: 1) Sales people with customer connections or 2) Developer/admin types who may have a lot of access to systems. In either of these cases the employer could be concerned that the possibly-terminated employee is going to damage the assets (contacts or code) that the company has. If I could contribute a pattern from my limited experience it would be this: Companies tend to hire a hatchet-man a few months before layoffs start. It often looks like an incompetent manager "decided to spend more time with his family", or the creation of a new, often highly paid, middle manager position. After the new guy is in his place he lays off the people that he's {decided, been instructed} to, and then moves on, often because he's burnt out from doing all of the dirt work that the managers above him are too weak to do. In both companies the person who was hired as a hatchet man would have been a far better manager than the one who sailed the ship into the iceberg in the first place. If as an employer you don't see your manager as capable of doing this hard job (layoffs), how do you expect them to do the hard day to day job of managing performance? Just keeping the house clean can save that first round of layoffs that often consists of the low performers, and without the horrible morale crush of pink slips.
tptacek 18y ago
Start by not asking for sympathy, or writing blog posts encouraging people to fawn over you for your perseverance and wisdom during hard times. Next, stop taking a salary, or recognize that you're accepting six figures while throwing people you recruited out into the worst economy in 50 years. Finally, move your ass to find those people jobs. Carve out time to write real, personal recommendations for each of them. Introduce them to every company you have a relationship with. Sell. God help you if you write, "it saddens me that we have to let these people go, because most of them were solid performers". If you kept dead wood in your company, likely to the detriment of the whole team, and couldn't muster up the courage to deal with them until the economy gave you an excuse, it's all on you, asshole. Yeah, I sound like even more of a dick here than I normally do, but I don't think I'm the only one noticing the valley patting itself on the back for fucking people over. [edit I'm not super happy with this comment, but I'm not deleting it either; might as well be honest about what I think. We have employees too. Maybe I'll be a total douche if something bad happens to us? Tell me you told me so.]
- wheels 18y ago
  Yeah, I think the Tesla example yesterday was how not to do it. On the other hand, I think these things are relevant right now if there are people reading them that are venture backed and things look less rosy in their outlook. I have much more respect for an employer that plans ahead and lets their employees know what's up significantly before they can't make the next month's payroll. "Here's the deal. It's going to be hard to raise the next round. We've got to cut back. You've got jobs for another month and severance for a month after that. Let's sit down and talk about what you'd like to find for your next job and I'll push every contact I've got to help you find that."
- lacker 18y ago
  Stop taking a salary? In this economy? Are you crazy? I totally agree you shouldn't be a jerk and blog about it like, oh it was so tough for me, I had to fire so many people, the emotional agony it will inflict on me for the next couple weeks will be so hard. You have to recognize that no matter how hard it is for you, it's worse for them, something this blogger didn't seem to want to take on.
gaius 18y ago
As someone who has been laid off from tech companies twice, I care about one and only one thing: the size of the severance package. I don't need compassion, I don't need understanding, I don't need the people who ran the company into the ground to "help" me find a new job. Just show me the money. Heh, both times in fact those who got the chop counted themselves - and were viewed by former cow-orkers - as the lucky ones.
- swombat 18y ago
  Heh, both times in fact those who got the chop counted themselves - and were viewed by former cow-orkers - as the lucky ones. A pretty sad state of affairs... it's not like you can't leave by yourself and go do something more worthwhile, if you're that unhappy...
  - gaius 18y ago
    Why would you if you knew there was a payoff on the cards?
- iigs 18y ago
  As someone who's watched this happen a couple times I definitely agree. Furthermore, the earlier the cycle you're in the better your packages tend to be. The first round got great severance. The second round got a small package IIRC, and they missed payroll on round three, which is like getting -2 weeks of salary, pretty sleazy, IMO.
  - gaius 18y ago
    Both times for me were when the company decided to stop doing what I did. The first time, the company got out of technology altogether to concentrate on its strategy consulting business, all the engineers except a skeleton crew for maintenance were laid off in one go. Sucked to be one of the engineers they kept! The second time was the company shifting from products to services. They said you can have X months money and leave now, or X/2 months paid to find a job somewhere else in the company (and then nothing). I didn't look back. In both cases, senior managers know they're in trouble but think they can get themselves out, there's still plenty of cash in the kitty and they need to preserve the appearance of confidence, so they'll pay fair severances. When it gets desperate - then it's everyone for themselves.
ojbyrne 18y ago
Totally unrelated, and I'm not really criticizing the article (it's pretty good) but I was reminded of a recent doonesbury, which also had 4 points: smoke, fire, hose, shovel. http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20080916 http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full...
fallentimes 18y ago
Honesty + generous severance please.
known 18y ago
If N employees voluntarily cut off their salaries by 50% they can prevent N/2 lay offs.
- bigbang 18y ago
  in most cases N=0
Allocator2008 18y ago
It is better to lay people off on a Friday. Studies show there is less chance of an incident if you do it before a weekend.
- Allocator2008 18y ago
  Hey by the way, that was a quote from "Office Space". It was meant tongue-in-cheek. Personally, I think lay-offs suck, and if you have a good business plan (focus on being cash-flow positive) than you lessen your chances of needing lay-offs. I have seen the "hire too many people in good times", "lay them all off in bad times" approach with no regard to wanting to be cash-flow positive. That is certainly not how I would want to do business!
nihilocrat 18y ago
Anything is better than a "parking lot meeting".
njharman 18y ago
Do it survivor style and have your employees vote a new guy/gal off each week? Then... blog about it, become an internet fad, get lots of free press / attention, attract customers, expand business, hire more devs.

20 points by wheels 18y ago

cmos 18y ago

When people talk about how starting a company will bring you to the best and worst times of your life, this would be in the 'worst' category. Spend time working your contacts to help them find another job. Your the one that screwed up, not them. Don't be afraid to say that.

Fuca 18y ago

Tell them Monday that Friday its their last day.

lacker 18y ago
I hope you're kidding! Keeping a bunch of pissed off soon-to-be-ex-employees around the workplace isn't good for anyone. The best you can do is to lay people off on Friday morning so at least they can be with your friends and family over the weekend for support.
- jm4 18y ago
  I think early in the week is the best way - at least when firing people. If you let someone go on Monday or Tuesday they can immediately start looking for a new job the next morning. With any luck maybe they can start getting callbacks or a phone interview before the end of the week. That goes a long way toward boosting morale. The weekend makes it a little more difficult. Sure, they can update their resumes, apply online, etc., but that kind of ruins the weekend and leaves a lot of time to start feeling hopeless or really pissed off. Plus, some people might not mind so much if you tell them first thing Monday morning that they have to go home. :)

iigs 18y ago

It's great advice but may as well have been written in hieroglyphics, personally I've never seen it taken (three rounds across two companies + missed payroll during bankruptcy once). I posit that the reason for this, in tech anyway, is that employees are generally in one of two categories: 1) Sales people with customer connections or 2) Developer/admin types who may have a lot of access to systems. In either of these cases the employer could be concerned that the possibly-terminated employee is going to damage the assets (contacts or code) that the company has. If I could contribute a pattern from my limited experience it would be this: Companies tend to hire a hatchet-man a few months before layoffs start. It often looks like an incompetent manager "decided to spend more time with his family", or the creation of a new, often highly paid, middle manager position. After the new guy is in his place he lays off the people that he's {decided, been instructed} to, and then moves on, often because he's burnt out from doing all of the dirt work that the managers above him are too weak to do. In both companies the person who was hired as a hatchet man would have been a far better manager than the one who sailed the ship into the iceberg in the first place. If as an employer you don't see your manager as capable of doing this hard job (layoffs), how do you expect them to do the hard day to day job of managing performance? Just keeping the house clean can save that first round of layoffs that often consists of the low performers, and without the horrible morale crush of pink slips.

tptacek 18y ago

Start by not asking for sympathy, or writing blog posts encouraging people to fawn over you for your perseverance and wisdom during hard times. Next, stop taking a salary, or recognize that you're accepting six figures while throwing people you recruited out into the worst economy in 50 years. Finally, move your ass to find those people jobs. Carve out time to write real, personal recommendations for each of them. Introduce them to every company you have a relationship with. Sell. God help you if you write, "it saddens me that we have to let these people go, because most of them were solid performers". If you kept dead wood in your company, likely to the detriment of the whole team, and couldn't muster up the courage to deal with them until the economy gave you an excuse, it's all on you, asshole. Yeah, I sound like even more of a dick here than I normally do, but I don't think I'm the only one noticing the valley patting itself on the back for fucking people over. [edit I'm not super happy with this comment, but I'm not deleting it either; might as well be honest about what I think. We have employees too. Maybe I'll be a total douche if something bad happens to us? Tell me you told me so.]

wheels 18y ago
Yeah, I think the Tesla example yesterday was how not to do it. On the other hand, I think these things are relevant right now if there are people reading them that are venture backed and things look less rosy in their outlook. I have much more respect for an employer that plans ahead and lets their employees know what's up significantly before they can't make the next month's payroll. "Here's the deal. It's going to be hard to raise the next round. We've got to cut back. You've got jobs for another month and severance for a month after that. Let's sit down and talk about what you'd like to find for your next job and I'll push every contact I've got to help you find that."
lacker 18y ago
Stop taking a salary? In this economy? Are you crazy? I totally agree you shouldn't be a jerk and blog about it like, oh it was so tough for me, I had to fire so many people, the emotional agony it will inflict on me for the next couple weeks will be so hard. You have to recognize that no matter how hard it is for you, it's worse for them, something this blogger didn't seem to want to take on.

gaius 18y ago

As someone who has been laid off from tech companies twice, I care about one and only one thing: the size of the severance package. I don't need compassion, I don't need understanding, I don't need the people who ran the company into the ground to "help" me find a new job. Just show me the money. Heh, both times in fact those who got the chop counted themselves - and were viewed by former cow-orkers - as the lucky ones.

swombat 18y ago
Heh, both times in fact those who got the chop counted themselves - and were viewed by former cow-orkers - as the lucky ones. A pretty sad state of affairs... it's not like you can't leave by yourself and go do something more worthwhile, if you're that unhappy...
- gaius 18y ago
  Why would you if you knew there was a payoff on the cards?
iigs 18y ago
As someone who's watched this happen a couple times I definitely agree. Furthermore, the earlier the cycle you're in the better your packages tend to be. The first round got great severance. The second round got a small package IIRC, and they missed payroll on round three, which is like getting -2 weeks of salary, pretty sleazy, IMO.
- gaius 18y ago
  Both times for me were when the company decided to stop doing what I did. The first time, the company got out of technology altogether to concentrate on its strategy consulting business, all the engineers except a skeleton crew for maintenance were laid off in one go. Sucked to be one of the engineers they kept! The second time was the company shifting from products to services. They said you can have X months money and leave now, or X/2 months paid to find a job somewhere else in the company (and then nothing). I didn't look back. In both cases, senior managers know they're in trouble but think they can get themselves out, there's still plenty of cash in the kitty and they need to preserve the appearance of confidence, so they'll pay fair severances. When it gets desperate - then it's everyone for themselves.

ojbyrne 18y ago

Totally unrelated, and I'm not really criticizing the article (it's pretty good) but I was reminded of a recent doonesbury, which also had 4 points: smoke, fire, hose, shovel. http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20080916 http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full...

fallentimes 18y ago

Honesty + generous severance please.

known 18y ago

If N employees voluntarily cut off their salaries by 50% they can prevent N/2 lay offs.

bigbang 18y ago
in most cases N=0

Allocator2008 18y ago

It is better to lay people off on a Friday. Studies show there is less chance of an incident if you do it before a weekend.

Allocator2008 18y ago
Hey by the way, that was a quote from "Office Space". It was meant tongue-in-cheek. Personally, I think lay-offs suck, and if you have a good business plan (focus on being cash-flow positive) than you lessen your chances of needing lay-offs. I have seen the "hire too many people in good times", "lay them all off in bad times" approach with no regard to wanting to be cash-flow positive. That is certainly not how I would want to do business!

nihilocrat 18y ago

Anything is better than a "parking lot meeting".

njharman 18y ago

Do it survivor style and have your employees vote a new guy/gal off each week? Then... blog about it, become an internet fad, get lots of free press / attention, attract customers, expand business, hire more devs.