I would give only factual statements with no emotion. I would provide steps we took to avoid the layoffs and the teams we formed, including fellow employees, m

I would give only factual statements with no emotion. I would provide steps we took to avoid the layoffs and the teams we formed, including fellow employees, managers, leaders and financial analysts to think-tank our way out of the layoffs. As CEO I would personally offer a reference to affected employees on LinkedIn and in email to make it clear to their prospective employers that they were excellent employees and that the termination of their employment was no fault of their own. I would require my C-Level direct reports to offer the same thing at the employees request. Prior to layoffs I would require the employees managers to write up good things about them and submit them to me. If they can not give me good things to say about the employee I would question their hiring practices and review the management level employment. Should I discover that managers were doing Hire-To-Fire practices, they would take the place of the FTE's that were to be let go. I would then document the steps we are taking to reduce or mitigate the risk of future layoffs as to not give the perception that this would be an expected annual event.