A very badly handled round of layoffs

Dear Bob …

I appreciated your comments in this week’s Keep the Joint Running (“What to tell employees, and how,” (Keep the Joint Running, 12/8/2008, which described the importance of communicating compassion and pain-sharing, among other points – Bob). Here’s how it compares to my experience.

When I was laid off in January my former employer did all it could to not express any compassion. They were, I suspect, concerned they might be implying something they didn’t want to imply.

It was strictly arms length, both literally and figuratively, and cold as could be. There was a table to seat 8 -10, but all but three chairs had been removed from the conference room, two at one end of the table for the H.R. person and my boss’s boss’s boss and one at the other end for me. They slid an envelope of papers down the table to me so they wouldn’t have to get any closer to me than absolutely necessary.

As I didn’t know either one I tried to shake their hands at the beginning and end of the meeting, but they refused, putting their hands behind them or in their pockets. I can only assume they didn’t want a handshake to imply any sort of agreement that wasn’t spelled out in the carefully examined papers they’d already provided me.

We were told layoffs were coming and we were told not to talk to those that were laid off to the extent we could avoid it. We were allowed to speak to them if we were trying to learn their responsibilities, etc. but to avoid them socially, personally, etc. Little did I expect that I would be one of them. Of course, no official list was every published so how we were supposed to know who was laid off and therefore we weren’t suppose to talk to I don’t know.

Supposedly H.R. figured out who was superfluous, and supposedly management had absolutely no say in the matter. No personal considerations were allowed to play any part, just cold hard facts. Of course, there was no indication of what those facts were, and no chance of appeal was allowed.

And of course, they said it wasn’t that we weren’t doing our job well, it’s just that they didn’t want us around any more. We even had some employees who volunteered to be “rif’ed.” Two I know had already received offers from outside the company that were still open, but they were declined, so the company could axe those that H.R. chose instead.

Managers and even Vice Presidents in other subsidiaries who were looking to fill open positions couldn’t find out who had been laid off to offer them positions for which they may be suitable. They could only speak to a person if the employee first came to them to ask about an opening. Of course they were all conciliatory when speaking about the former employees in general, but their actions spoke much louder than their words.

I’m not very well connected to the “grapevine” but my name went out on the grapevine as laid off and my future coworkers came looking for me and asked me to apply for an open position. If it hadn’t been for them asking me to consider it I wouldn’t have even known about the opening. I thank the Lord that they took the time to look me up. After I’d applied, then they could speak to their boss about what they knew of my skills and abilities.

Fortunately I found another position within another subsidiary — the subsidiary I was transferred out of was eliminated — and am still happily employed. (OK, I took about a 15% pay cut to stay employed, and that has made keeping my daughter in college difficult.) And most amazing, I like this job much better than the one from which I was laid off, both the work and those I work with and for.

The company continues to say things about those laid off that are very hard to believe. We were recently told that of the estimated 250+ laid off when I was let go, less than 80 wanted to continue employment with the company, ( I find 80 to be way too low based on those I know ) and of those only one had not found a job within the company.

In addition to myself, at least four of the eight closest to me looked for another job within the company and either still don’t have a job or are working somewhere else. I have no idea what the other three’s intentions were, but at least as far as I know they aren’t with the company any more.

I’m the only one of the eight I know that got another job with the company.

And as for sharing the financial pain, that’s a laugh. Even if their salaries were set to a single dollar a year, their bonuses, stock options, etc. would be worth far more than my annual salary, and quite possibly more than their salary.

I don’t see how reducing someone’s net income from 15 million to 10 million or even 5 million is going to cause them much financial pain. And I suspect that with salaries like that they have either savings or investments that could be liquidated to supply them with the cash they need for daily living, in lieu of salary, that those of us paid a more normal salary don’t have.

That’s my story. No advice needed. I just thought your readers might be interested in how one large company handled a round of layoffs.

– Barely Survived

Dear Survived …

Sounds like the company handled this just about as badly as I can imagine, with the proviso that it handled it in a way unlikely to land it in court.

I have strong doubts that shaking your hand in the meeting and otherwise being civil would have caused much risk.

For anyone reading this in a position to do things differently:

Dumping the choice of who stays and who goes on HR is a bad way to make decisions about who to lay off in a downturn. It’s better than using seniority as the sole gauge, but that’s about all I’ll say in favor of it.

Among the many disadvantages to the H.R.-decides approach is this: It doesn’t provide for the most basic starting point of any professionally planned round of layoffs, which is figuring out where cuts are appropriate.

And there are really only three criteria to apply — under-performing employees (who should be replaced on a two-for-three ratio, because their work doesn’t go away), simple waste (work that shouldn’t be performed at all; H.R. won’t have any idea about this), and unneeded capacity (another subject about which H.R. knows nothing and has no authority).

In this economy I can understand wanting to keep a job, even under these circumstances. As soon as the employment market opens up, though, I suspect you might want to find a company to work for that’s run by actual leaders.

– Bob