5 ms·
I've worked at companies during layoffs, and have been a manager at these companies as well (though fortunately never had to lay someone off personally). My adv
by declan 11y ago
I've worked at companies during layoffs, and have been a manager at these companies as well (though fortunately never had to lay someone off personally). My advice:
- Managers should tell their direct reports personally, rather than delegating to someone else like HR. I still remember, unfondly, when one manager didn't want the burden of delivering the bad news and found someone else to do it.
- Give the people who will be laid off as much time as possible to send work emails, talk to colleagues, get taken to lunch, etc. As <steven2012> said, let them leave with dignity. Your employment agreement already prohibits misuse of corporate resources and criminal law prohibits theft of company property; as a general rule there's no need to have a security guard hovering over a desk.
- Write a letter of recommendation if your corporate policy allows and your employee's performance merits it. Give it to them in printed form and PDF. Don't merely offer to do it if they ask.
- As many others have said, do only one round of layoffs. Company morale can survive a single round. It may not survive repeated rounds, with nobody knowing when (and where) the next axe is going to fall.
- Communicate honestly with your remaining employees to the extent policy allows. The best managers will admit it if they don't know something.
- davemel37 11y ago> - Write a letter of recommendation if your corporate policy allows and your employee's performance merits it. Give it to them in printed form and PDF. Don't merely offer to do it if they ask. If you really care about making it easier for the person being fired, this is a MUST. I have been on the opposite end where my employer simply said, "write something up and Ill take a look at it." Don't Do That. It is the same thing as telling them "you are dead to me, and aren't even worth the decency of two minutes of my time to reflect on the good you have done for my company, and the extra minute to think of a way to help you move forward." Want to be decent, write the letter of recommendation in advance. The gesture will go a long way in keeping bridges from being burnt. On the note of burnt bridges, I know of a nursing home company in Colorado that layed someone off in a not so courteous way and 10 years later she became the head of nursing home licensing in Colorado and the moment she found the first excuse, she revoked their license on 20 nursing homes, costing them tens of millions of dollars.
- balls187 11y ago> If you really care about making it easier for the person being fired, this is a MUST. Perhaps this is splitting hairs, but I see a round of layoffs as something considerably different than being fired. Net-effect the same, but firing someone has a the connotation that it was for cause.
- davemel37 11y agoI can only speak to my own experience: but the the connotation you are looking for just doesn't exist. As long as some people are let go and others keep their jobs, people will assume there was a reason they got let go...not just because the company had to make layoffs. Short of committing a deliberate fire-able offense, being let go as part of a layoff feels exactly the same.
- balls187 11y agoExcept being fired for cause you are: * Unlikely to get a reference. * Unlikely to collect unemployment insurance. * Unlikely to get severance. * Unlikely be rehired in the future. Yes it may feel like the same, but they are very clearly two different things.
- davemel37 11y agoI think we are defining "cause" differently. Inam referrring to an underperformer being let go for financial reasons or someone not fitting into the culture - similar to a layoff but only impacting one person...you seem to be referring to someone who gets fired because they did something egregious.
- cm2012 11y agoThat is an amazing revenge story.
- tripzilch 11y ago> a nursing home company in Colorado that layed someone off in a not so courteous way and 10 years later she became the head of nursing home licensing in Colorado and the moment she found the first excuse, she revoked their license on 20 nursing homes, costing them tens of millions of dollars. Um, are the people she was affecting by doing that, actually the same that did the non-courteous laying-off 10 years ago? (or even perhaps/possibly deserving by continuing some status quo?)