[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How can we lay people off without cruelty?
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Ask HN: How can we lay people off without cruelty?
Hi HN, it's bad out here and I need advice on the most humane way
to lay people off. It's more than half of the company, the company
itself is small (less than 50 people) and very close. I'm the head
of engineering, so I have a large share of those kind folks to let
go. Literally I have to lay off friends. I know we're gonna do the
basics as best we can of course: more than 2 months' redundancy
package, try and find roles for people as best we can, do the
paperwork right so they can claim anything they need to. I want to
know your advice for the human element; how to tell people and not
be cruel. How to balance that against honestly trying to save what
we can. Eg. I hate that when I read stories about layoffs it
always comes as this awful surprise and then you have to
immediately leave, it's so abrupt how can you say goodbye properly?
But that seems to be some protection against someone acting in a
way they normally wouldn't and doing something destructive in the
heat of the moment. How can we possibly preserve both properties?
We want to tell people one-at-a-time and in-person. Is this best?
Why do companies even mass-tell people? But then I don't know how
anyone can keep their composure going back to their desk to pick
things up though... Quickly word would get out, diminishing the
point of telling people one-at-a-time. Where to have these
conversations is also an issue, the office is pretty small. And we
need to have a lot of them in just a short time too. It's going to
be awful regardless, but I would like any advice on how to make it
the least awful. The least-awful, that is, for those who have to
leave; since if I get the dubious privilege of riding the death
spiral a bit longer then we can leave my own feelings out of this.
Author : throwaway345826
Score : 7 points
Date : 2022-06-24 21:42 UTC (1 hours ago)
| anon291 wrote:
| If it's truly a lay off, I would simply tell everyone. We're
| going to lay off X% of the workforce. If you want to voluntarily
| quit, we will provide you with X severance. Otherwise, we will
| pick and choose. Those that can find new work will do so fast. To
| be least cruel, you want most of your employees to find new work
| ASAP. That is the least cruel outcome. Thus simply telling
| everyone and letting people seek out employment before hand is
| the best way IMO. If it comes down to too many people leaving,
| then you can start counteroffering, or better yet, take the
| savings.
| tompark wrote:
| I can speak in the context of SW eng teams, but not other kinds
| of teams within tech companies.
|
| I've had to layoff direct reports during multiple layoff waves at
| a couple different companies. (Moreover, I myself have been laid
| off when a small company went out of business or when a business
| unit was eliminated.) I don't think it's difficult to avoid
| cruelty during a layoff, you just have to be very honest and make
| it clear that it is not personal. The announcement should be
| company-wide, but then talk to each person individually or in
| small teams if possible, and afterward go together offsite to a
| bar/restaurant and hang out with everyone who can join.
|
| Honestly in many cases it's better for them to move on rather
| than go down with a sinking ship. In tech over the past couple
| decades there's always been jobs elsewhere for engineers, even
| after the dotcom bust. I have tried to help place people
| elsewhere using my network and told them I'd give them a good
| reference if they needed one. HR tends to discourage you from
| making an extra effort like this -- e.g. "you should only
| acknowledge that they worked at the company, don't give a
| recommendation" -- because a recommendation can become a
| liability, but I feel it's my recommendation as their direct
| manager and I am taking personal liability for it.
|
| ---
|
| There's something else I'd add -- not about layoffs but related
| to firing people. Even if you're firing someone for performance
| reasons, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE CRUEL. I've seen so many people
| get fired in such a cruel manner, and it's totally unnecessary.
| There's absolutely no need for the manager to have any sense of
| anger or betrayal over a person's poor performance in a role.
|
| Someone's performance in a particular role in a particular
| company has nothing to do with that person's worth as an
| employee. It was always just a bad fit, or a bad situation -- it
| doesn't mean that this is a bad person or even a bad worker, and
| should not reflect upon their self-worth. In my career, I've had
| to fire two people for performance reasons, and both times I made
| this difference clear, and thankfully we were able to actually
| maintain a friendship afterwards.
| black_13 wrote:
| nyx wrote:
| I'm relatively new to the industry, so this is the first
| recession I've been around for, but I've been noticing some
| patterns in the public layoff announcements I've read.
|
| One thing that seems popular is a mass notification that says
| "hey everyone, layoffs are coming, we'll notify each of you
| individually whether you're affected or not." I suppose you could
| do the in-person meetings after that, and that might be okay for
| a small shop like yours, but it also seems like it might drag
| things out? I wouldn't want to be sitting around wondering if I'm
| going to be the next person called into the HR office.
| digisign wrote:
| - Severance package, already done
|
| - Job help, docs, classes on how to get a job
|
| - Leadership should share consequences, at a minimum salary
| reductions. This is important because typically bad decisions
| come from the top, while the folks at the bottom suffer from
| them.
|
| - Be completely honest at every point.
|
| - Look 'em straight in the eye, tell them you're sorry because
| XYZ.
|
| It happens. Don't beat yourself up over it. I've been laid off in
| the past and it was ultimately positive. Got a break and it led
| to better opportunities.
| marrone12 wrote:
| One, be as transparent as possible, as early as possible.
| Hopefully your company has not been hiding that there are
| financial problems so that it won't come as a huge surprise that
| layoffs are happening. If you haven't done this yet, please start
| communicating. You do not necessarily need to tell the whole
| company that layoffs are happening, but you do need to tell them
| that this might happen.
|
| Two, avoid saying anything about how hard this was for you. They
| do not care.
|
| It is definitely best to tell people in person, and individually.
| I don't have any advice as to how to do so in a small space. It
| is for the best to restrict access to sensitive systems once a
| person is laid off, but you can keep them access to slack or
| email so people can say goodbye if they'd like.
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