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I'm not sure if companies understand the emotional impact on the laid off and the layoff survivors. It almost seems like a terror campaign, whether intended or

I'm not sure if companies understand the emotional impact on the laid off and the layoff survivors. It almost seems like a terror campaign, whether intended or not.

throwawayq3423 7mo ago
Honest question, why would they care?
- danmaz74 7mo ago
  For the morale of remaining employees?
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    I've seen layoffs with severance so good that the remaining employees felt bad themselves.
    - rootusrootus 6mo ago
      Ha! So true. Our last layoff had severance so generous that I told my manager next time pick me.
    - evilduck 6mo ago
      The last time my company did layoffs they offered the same generous severance package afterwards to anyone else who wanted it. We had three people take the offer.
  - kibwen 7mo ago
    Honest question, why would they care? The rancher does not care about the morale of the cattle as they're being led to slaughter.
  - jimkleiber 7mo ago
    And that includes them, the people doing the layoffs, who are employees as well. And what we often don't realize is that causing the pain to others most often causes pain to us as well. Human group output and productivity can rely a lot on trust, and if that trust is damaged, it can hinder all productivity.
- viccis 7mo ago
  As far as actual people? Depends on their personal moral code and is why colleges make people take ethics, even if I don't think that results in anything other than more elaborate ways to justify doing whatever they feel like anyway. Most people would agree that you should minimize suffering in others if you can, but people who make it to upper management and C suites often got there by not being bothered by such scruples. As far as the company is concerned, obviously there's no reason not to care aside from not wanting to lose any critical employees who value stability. That's why many of the labor protections we take for granted now were fought for many years in the past.
potsandpans 7mo ago
This is largely the world we've created with litigation practices. Corpo is very careful to show empathy that can be perceived in some way as accepting blame in a way that would open them to litigation.
- jimkleiber 7mo ago
  Yeah, our litigation culture to me is just an inability for individuals/companies to resolve conflicts and escalate it to the legal system. And unfortunately there are many elements in the system that discourage us from reconciling and push us towards escalating.
tech_ken 7mo ago
Yes in my (somewhat tinfoil) opinion the point is to have an emotional impact on the workforce overall (or at least, one of the points is). Tech workers had a really good 20 years in the US, and kind of forgot that they were ultimately still wage workers. I think the culture circa 2018 took for granted a basic level of respect and cooperation from upper executives, and were beginning to exercise their power to achieve political goals, which was annoying to the tech ownership class. I think one of the major strategic turns of last 4ish years is the usage of precarity and high turnover to corrode worker solidarity in fields which used to be ironclad and respectable white-collar work. By simultaneously narrowing the hiring window ('junior devs are replaceable with AI') and also expanding the opportunities to be culled ('we are axing this division to cover our moonshot outlays') capital cultivates a desperate and compliant workforce. Bottom-up culture is woke, in the 2020's the folks in power want top-down directives that are followed unquestioningly; similar approach to how the executive branch was brought to heel by DOGE.
- pfannkuchen 6mo ago
  Or the current crop of companies has just ossified and are waiting for a disrupter to kill them. You can’t get that big and be around for that long without having the original culture die, it seems. This isn’t the first wave of companies this sort of thing has happened to, is it?
jedberg 7mo ago
They understand, but they are more concerned about you exfiltrating data and suing them. But you're right, the survivors don't even get a list. They have to find out when something they're waiting for never shows up because that person doesn't work there anymore.
- pavel_lishin 7mo ago
  This is why it's important to have a network off of company property.
- jimkleiber 7mo ago
  Eh, that's brutal, wondering why someone isn't replying to your email only to find out they get let go. Almost like finding out a friend died, in a professional way. I think we often just don't understand the full dimensionality of layoffs.
rustystump 7mo ago
Contrary to what people may think, the most humane way is a fast clean cut. Drawing it out in anyway doesnt help anyone. This does assume communication is clear about employee next steps for HR related tasks. This is also why in the other direction a fast clean cut works too. I mean if they want two weeks of “work”, i always consider that severance. The fast clean cut is true in all industries. Drawing it out only makes it more painful. It is similar to breaking up in a relationship.
- jimkleiber 7mo ago
  It sounds as if you're describing how to humanely kill a living being. There are alternatives to killing things and I don't think fast clean cut is true in all industries. I think people want it to be true because then it hides away the complexity of the emotions we feel. Just cut it off and pretend that the cutting off won't bother us or them after the event. I think that strategy may appear helpful but just buries most of the feelings, which don't go away, most likely just to fester underneath and erode trust.
  - rustystump 6mo ago
    Killing is an escalation to what i said. The reality is the layoff decision has been made. There is no undo. It is better to cut cleanly as it allows people to move on faster than drawing it out. The best thing for the most people is to help them move on to the next gig quickly. The people u work with bosses included, are what make or break this. In my experience, people help one another. I have seen ceo’s push resumes of people let go to other execs in their network. This is outside company policy or communication for legal reasons but not everyone is dirt bag.
    - jimkleiber 6mo ago
      Oh I didn't mean to say that's what you wanted it to mean, just that I've heard clean cut in two main spaces: taking off bandages and slaughtering animals. If you mean clean cut as in only cleanly cut the contract, but then maintain the relationship in other ways, I think that could make sense, as it doesn't pretend the decision hasn't already been made. I think I was reacting to clean cut the relationship completely, which I don't even think works well. But yeah, I'd appreciate if the individuals or even the company helped the people out. It'd be like ending a relationship with someone who was financially dependent on you and just letting them fall of the cliff, compared to saying that you know it doesn't work for you two together, but you'll financially help them transition. I dunno, some people should say clean cut the relationship, drop friendships, never talk, cold turkey, I just don't know how well that works for human well being in the long term.
ponector 7mo ago
This is American way. There are no people, only resources.
- guerrilla 7mo ago
  Literally, "Human Resources". Such a disgusting phrase.
heraldgeezer 7mo ago
[flagged]
- Aurornis 7mo ago
  > But it goes both ways, if I want to leave I have to work the mandated period Do companies actually force people to continue working during that period? I would expect that in tech they'd allow them to leave early because employees who have chosen to leave the company are some times not the most helpful to keep around for months
  - the_biot 7mo ago
    I have never, ever understood this whole mandated period thing. Aside from what you mention -- do you really want to keep these people around against their will -- I don't understand how your (ex-)employer can force you to do anything against your will. All you have to do is say "no". Yet people keep believing mandated work after a layoff is a thing.
    - duckmysick 6mo ago
      It's not against their will. It's a part of the contract they signed when they started working at the company. The contract stipulates how it can be terminated (in accordance with the local law). If it says each party can terminate a contract with a prior notice of two weeks, the contract is enforced for those two weeks after giving in the notice. There's still an employee-employer relationship at this point, even if the employee gave their notice. In some countries the notice period can go for months. Usually it gets longer with the tenure. It allows both parties to transition and prepare in advance.
      - deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
  - zelos 7mo ago
    I was forced to work out a 3 month notice period at my previous company in the UK. I don’t see the point of keeping an already-checked out employee around so long when you have basically no way of getting anything but the bare minimum out of them.
julenx 7mo ago
Some employees in the company might understand the emotional impact, but companies themselves would only look for certainty in protecting what belongs to them, which will hardly align with fairness or emotions towards employees in a situation like this.
viccis 7mo ago
One of the most surreal meetings I've ever been to was a company All Hands after a 20% layoff round. The upper management people who decided who was laid off took turns talking about how upset it made them to have to do it. They showed a diagram of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief and went back and forth talking about what stage of grief they were in having to lay all these people off. Was like something out of the UK version of The Office. It was so tone deaf that it was bleakly comedic at a certain point. The extra kicker was that there were a bunch of UK people in this meeting who knew they'd be laid off, but it takes longer to do the redundancy process over there, so they had to listen to these people complaining about how sad firing them feels.
- bombcar 6mo ago
  The sad thing is they probably did feel bad about it! But nobody cares and talking about it at that time is incredibly tone-deaf.
Aurornis 7mo ago
One of my past employers tried to give laid off employees a dignified send offs including not immediately revoking their access. The number of people who snap and make rash decisions to try to exfiltrate data, plant backdoor logins for themselves, or sabotage company work in those hours was a much larger number than I would have guessed prior to seeing it.
- jimkleiber 7mo ago
  Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time with almost no reason for why they're being let go except maybe a vague profitability scorecard. And also to expect and manage people snapping and giving them an off-ramp, financially but emotionally as well and maybe professionally, too. Why not try to help them find other jobs? Companies don't just provide money, they provide people with meaning, routine, social circle, and so much, and layoffs cut all of those immediately.
  - Aurornis 7mo ago
    > Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time The number of people included in a single layoff wasn't a factor. The people who snapped treated it as a personal affront and wanted revenge on the company. If anything, being laid off in a large group made it feel less personal to people. The people who felt unfairly singled out were the angriest. If an entire satellite office was closed or a department was laid off together they didn't take it as personally.
    - jimkleiber 7mo ago
      Yeah that makes sense to me and I appreciate you saying it. If the whole team gets laid off, it's we all go down with the ship. But if one person gets laid off on a team, I think it can create intense dynamics. Like why them specifically? It wasn't about the department, it was about them. I can see why they'd take it personally and why the survivor guilt might be stronger on that team as well.
  - 6mo ago
xXSLAYERXx 7mo ago
When i was first laid off during the dot com bust I was working on a sales floor. All open no cubes. We didn't know layoffs were coming. Manager walks in and taps this one guy on the shoulder, says grab your personal things and come with me. Manager came back in did the same to a few others. Then it was me. Talk about embarrassing! Also, was 2 weeks before quarter ended. If you were not working for the company at the end of the Q, no bonus. 2 weeks! I'll never forget that. That was my first taste of how nasty a company can be. Not the layoffs, hey things happen. But the timing. Feels diabolical.
- oblio 6mo ago
  Don't worry, big companies are doing similar things now. Layoffs after the main activity period is over, laying off HR people after they held layoff meetings for other departments, etc. Reptiles.
pfortuny 7mo ago
Do not say “companies”. They are managers who do this. It is them who are to blame.
- nedt 6mo ago
  Managers do know. Some of them are better at it than others. But even for the best it never is easy. And they are still humans, don't go to harsh on them with your blame.
tombert 6mo ago
I've noticed people are shockingly good at filtering out their empathy through bureaucracies. Instead of feeling bad about their personal decision that they made to lay someone off, they instead can tell themselves it was the only way to do business and then happily absolve themselves of guilt.
asdff 6mo ago
Company still has no sense that them shaving 1% of their bottom line means shaving 100% of the bottom line of some of their dedicated staff.

I'm not sure if companies understand the emotional impact on the laid off and the layoff survivors. It almost seems like a terror campaign, whether intended or not.

throwawayq3423 7mo ago

Honest question, why would they care?

danmaz74 7mo ago
For the morale of remaining employees?
- bombcar 6mo ago
  I've seen layoffs with severance so good that the remaining employees felt bad themselves.
  - rootusrootus 6mo ago
    Ha! So true. Our last layoff had severance so generous that I told my manager next time pick me.
  - evilduck 6mo ago
    The last time my company did layoffs they offered the same generous severance package afterwards to anyone else who wanted it. We had three people take the offer.
- kibwen 7mo ago
  Honest question, why would they care? The rancher does not care about the morale of the cattle as they're being led to slaughter.
- jimkleiber 7mo ago
  And that includes them, the people doing the layoffs, who are employees as well. And what we often don't realize is that causing the pain to others most often causes pain to us as well. Human group output and productivity can rely a lot on trust, and if that trust is damaged, it can hinder all productivity.
viccis 7mo ago
As far as actual people? Depends on their personal moral code and is why colleges make people take ethics, even if I don't think that results in anything other than more elaborate ways to justify doing whatever they feel like anyway. Most people would agree that you should minimize suffering in others if you can, but people who make it to upper management and C suites often got there by not being bothered by such scruples. As far as the company is concerned, obviously there's no reason not to care aside from not wanting to lose any critical employees who value stability. That's why many of the labor protections we take for granted now were fought for many years in the past.

potsandpans 7mo ago

This is largely the world we've created with litigation practices. Corpo is very careful to show empathy that can be perceived in some way as accepting blame in a way that would open them to litigation.

jimkleiber 7mo ago
Yeah, our litigation culture to me is just an inability for individuals/companies to resolve conflicts and escalate it to the legal system. And unfortunately there are many elements in the system that discourage us from reconciling and push us towards escalating.

tech_ken 7mo ago

Yes in my (somewhat tinfoil) opinion the point is to have an emotional impact on the workforce overall (or at least, one of the points is). Tech workers had a really good 20 years in the US, and kind of forgot that they were ultimately still wage workers. I think the culture circa 2018 took for granted a basic level of respect and cooperation from upper executives, and were beginning to exercise their power to achieve political goals, which was annoying to the tech ownership class. I think one of the major strategic turns of last 4ish years is the usage of precarity and high turnover to corrode worker solidarity in fields which used to be ironclad and respectable white-collar work. By simultaneously narrowing the hiring window ('junior devs are replaceable with AI') and also expanding the opportunities to be culled ('we are axing this division to cover our moonshot outlays') capital cultivates a desperate and compliant workforce. Bottom-up culture is woke, in the 2020's the folks in power want top-down directives that are followed unquestioningly; similar approach to how the executive branch was brought to heel by DOGE.

pfannkuchen 6mo ago
Or the current crop of companies has just ossified and are waiting for a disrupter to kill them. You can’t get that big and be around for that long without having the original culture die, it seems. This isn’t the first wave of companies this sort of thing has happened to, is it?

jedberg 7mo ago

They understand, but they are more concerned about you exfiltrating data and suing them. But you're right, the survivors don't even get a list. They have to find out when something they're waiting for never shows up because that person doesn't work there anymore.

pavel_lishin 7mo ago
This is why it's important to have a network off of company property.
jimkleiber 7mo ago
Eh, that's brutal, wondering why someone isn't replying to your email only to find out they get let go. Almost like finding out a friend died, in a professional way. I think we often just don't understand the full dimensionality of layoffs.

rustystump 7mo ago

Contrary to what people may think, the most humane way is a fast clean cut. Drawing it out in anyway doesnt help anyone. This does assume communication is clear about employee next steps for HR related tasks. This is also why in the other direction a fast clean cut works too. I mean if they want two weeks of “work”, i always consider that severance. The fast clean cut is true in all industries. Drawing it out only makes it more painful. It is similar to breaking up in a relationship.

jimkleiber 7mo ago
It sounds as if you're describing how to humanely kill a living being. There are alternatives to killing things and I don't think fast clean cut is true in all industries. I think people want it to be true because then it hides away the complexity of the emotions we feel. Just cut it off and pretend that the cutting off won't bother us or them after the event. I think that strategy may appear helpful but just buries most of the feelings, which don't go away, most likely just to fester underneath and erode trust.
- rustystump 6mo ago
  Killing is an escalation to what i said. The reality is the layoff decision has been made. There is no undo. It is better to cut cleanly as it allows people to move on faster than drawing it out. The best thing for the most people is to help them move on to the next gig quickly. The people u work with bosses included, are what make or break this. In my experience, people help one another. I have seen ceo’s push resumes of people let go to other execs in their network. This is outside company policy or communication for legal reasons but not everyone is dirt bag.
  - jimkleiber 6mo ago
    Oh I didn't mean to say that's what you wanted it to mean, just that I've heard clean cut in two main spaces: taking off bandages and slaughtering animals. If you mean clean cut as in only cleanly cut the contract, but then maintain the relationship in other ways, I think that could make sense, as it doesn't pretend the decision hasn't already been made. I think I was reacting to clean cut the relationship completely, which I don't even think works well. But yeah, I'd appreciate if the individuals or even the company helped the people out. It'd be like ending a relationship with someone who was financially dependent on you and just letting them fall of the cliff, compared to saying that you know it doesn't work for you two together, but you'll financially help them transition. I dunno, some people should say clean cut the relationship, drop friendships, never talk, cold turkey, I just don't know how well that works for human well being in the long term.

ponector 7mo ago

This is American way. There are no people, only resources.

guerrilla 7mo ago
Literally, "Human Resources". Such a disgusting phrase.

heraldgeezer 7mo ago

[flagged]

Aurornis 7mo ago
> But it goes both ways, if I want to leave I have to work the mandated period Do companies actually force people to continue working during that period? I would expect that in tech they'd allow them to leave early because employees who have chosen to leave the company are some times not the most helpful to keep around for months
- the_biot 7mo ago
  I have never, ever understood this whole mandated period thing. Aside from what you mention -- do you really want to keep these people around against their will -- I don't understand how your (ex-)employer can force you to do anything against your will. All you have to do is say "no". Yet people keep believing mandated work after a layoff is a thing.
  - duckmysick 6mo ago
    It's not against their will. It's a part of the contract they signed when they started working at the company. The contract stipulates how it can be terminated (in accordance with the local law). If it says each party can terminate a contract with a prior notice of two weeks, the contract is enforced for those two weeks after giving in the notice. There's still an employee-employer relationship at this point, even if the employee gave their notice. In some countries the notice period can go for months. Usually it gets longer with the tenure. It allows both parties to transition and prepare in advance.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
- zelos 7mo ago
  I was forced to work out a 3 month notice period at my previous company in the UK. I don’t see the point of keeping an already-checked out employee around so long when you have basically no way of getting anything but the bare minimum out of them.

julenx 7mo ago

Some employees in the company might understand the emotional impact, but companies themselves would only look for certainty in protecting what belongs to them, which will hardly align with fairness or emotions towards employees in a situation like this.

viccis 7mo ago

One of the most surreal meetings I've ever been to was a company All Hands after a 20% layoff round. The upper management people who decided who was laid off took turns talking about how upset it made them to have to do it. They showed a diagram of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief and went back and forth talking about what stage of grief they were in having to lay all these people off. Was like something out of the UK version of The Office. It was so tone deaf that it was bleakly comedic at a certain point. The extra kicker was that there were a bunch of UK people in this meeting who knew they'd be laid off, but it takes longer to do the redundancy process over there, so they had to listen to these people complaining about how sad firing them feels.

bombcar 6mo ago
The sad thing is they probably did feel bad about it! But nobody cares and talking about it at that time is incredibly tone-deaf.

Aurornis 7mo ago

One of my past employers tried to give laid off employees a dignified send offs including not immediately revoking their access. The number of people who snap and make rash decisions to try to exfiltrate data, plant backdoor logins for themselves, or sabotage company work in those hours was a much larger number than I would have guessed prior to seeing it.

jimkleiber 7mo ago
Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time with almost no reason for why they're being let go except maybe a vague profitability scorecard. And also to expect and manage people snapping and giving them an off-ramp, financially but emotionally as well and maybe professionally, too. Why not try to help them find other jobs? Companies don't just provide money, they provide people with meaning, routine, social circle, and so much, and layoffs cut all of those immediately.
- Aurornis 7mo ago
  > Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time The number of people included in a single layoff wasn't a factor. The people who snapped treated it as a personal affront and wanted revenge on the company. If anything, being laid off in a large group made it feel less personal to people. The people who felt unfairly singled out were the angriest. If an entire satellite office was closed or a department was laid off together they didn't take it as personally.
  - jimkleiber 7mo ago
    Yeah that makes sense to me and I appreciate you saying it. If the whole team gets laid off, it's we all go down with the ship. But if one person gets laid off on a team, I think it can create intense dynamics. Like why them specifically? It wasn't about the department, it was about them. I can see why they'd take it personally and why the survivor guilt might be stronger on that team as well.
- 6mo ago

xXSLAYERXx 7mo ago

When i was first laid off during the dot com bust I was working on a sales floor. All open no cubes. We didn't know layoffs were coming. Manager walks in and taps this one guy on the shoulder, says grab your personal things and come with me. Manager came back in did the same to a few others. Then it was me. Talk about embarrassing! Also, was 2 weeks before quarter ended. If you were not working for the company at the end of the Q, no bonus. 2 weeks! I'll never forget that. That was my first taste of how nasty a company can be. Not the layoffs, hey things happen. But the timing. Feels diabolical.

oblio 6mo ago
Don't worry, big companies are doing similar things now. Layoffs after the main activity period is over, laying off HR people after they held layoff meetings for other departments, etc. Reptiles.

pfortuny 7mo ago

Do not say “companies”. They are managers who do this. It is them who are to blame.

nedt 6mo ago
Managers do know. Some of them are better at it than others. But even for the best it never is easy. And they are still humans, don't go to harsh on them with your blame.

tombert 6mo ago

I've noticed people are shockingly good at filtering out their empathy through bureaucracies. Instead of feeling bad about their personal decision that they made to lay someone off, they instead can tell themselves it was the only way to do business and then happily absolve themselves of guilt.

asdff 6mo ago

Company still has no sense that them shaving 1% of their bottom line means shaving 100% of the bottom line of some of their dedicated staff.