How to conduct a Heartfelt Layoff - Part 2
Chris Boelkes Posted on Friday, April 17, 2020 at 7:17AM What do some companies do wrong when laying people off?
By Deb Boelkes
I’ve seen countless mistakes over the years, starting with an experience early in my management career at AT&T in 1987, when the company was the first of several major corporations to undergo a significant downsizing. I talk about this experience in detail my latest book, Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring, but in a nutshell, here’s what happened:
It was on a Friday afternoon when I was told by my own manager I would have to lay off my entire department the following Tuesday morning. Not seeing it coming, I was completely stunned. I was given no instructions on how to go about it. I felt as though I had been told to lead my team to the guillotine. The way the senior leaders handled it was heartless, yet I did my best to mitigate the negative impact on my team members.
Over the years, I have seen a number of other companies keep everything a secret until the last moment. In one client account, which I personally observed, a large number of people spanning many departments received a mass email or a pre-recorded voice mail message call from HR with instructions to attend an emergency meeting within the hour.
Once everyone was in the room, security guards entered and closed the doors. The layoff announcement was made en masse by the head of HR without any the managers of the impacted employees knowing anything about it. One by one, each terminated employee was then walked by a security guard directly to their desk, where they were given an empty box for their personal items. In 15 minutes they were escorted out the front door by security.
Certainly no one wants to hear bad news this way, or via a mass email, or via a mass Zoom call, or worse yet, on a news broadcast! And certainly no one wants to be treated as if they don’t matter to their supervisor and/or to the company. Companies that take such cowardly actions stand to earn a well-deserved bad reputation for years to come.
Most importantly, when laying people off due to no fault of their own, avoid telling them what you think they may have done wrong, or could have done better, along the way.