Help with Possible Layoff Situation
Mel in CO
54 Posts
I read this forum frequently however this is my first time posting a question to the experts out there so please be nice to me. I have a two-part question that I need assistance with.
We are a small organization in CO with only 38 employees total currently and we are primarily a computer consulting company. Recently, we have discovered that we need to reduce costs in one manner or another, which has led to possibly laying off one to two employees within the organization. Almost all of our employees are good employees and do not have serious disciplinary problems (other than the occasional attendance problem but nothing serious like performance issues) which will make this a difficult process for me.
The employee(s) that we may have to layoff are in different areas of the business—one possibly in programming, one or two in our support department(s), etc. This leads me to my questions:
1.Where should / can I start looking for information as how I should go about looking at and evaluating individual(s) possible for layoff? One caveat that I should mention is that the average age of our employees are 35 years old and are not in a protected racial minority class. In addition, we have a good even number of men and women in each department. I will be consulting our attorney however I wanted to do some initial ‘leg-work’ prior to being charged for attorney fees.
2.One of the employees that possibly will leave due to natural attrition could alleviate the situation of us having to layoff one or more employees. This employee’s husband currently works for and possibly could be effected by the HP / Compaq merger. Upper management would like to ‘feel her out’ to see what could be going on with her husband’s job. They would like to see if her husband is planning to stay with HP / Compaq which may or may not create the need for them to move out of the state (and consequently leave employment with our organization). Then if he is not planning to stay with HP / Compaq, what her intentions are. My question is can we even legally ask these questions of this employee? Am I treading too close to a legal line that I should not cross?
Any assistance that can be provided would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Mel in CO
We are a small organization in CO with only 38 employees total currently and we are primarily a computer consulting company. Recently, we have discovered that we need to reduce costs in one manner or another, which has led to possibly laying off one to two employees within the organization. Almost all of our employees are good employees and do not have serious disciplinary problems (other than the occasional attendance problem but nothing serious like performance issues) which will make this a difficult process for me.
The employee(s) that we may have to layoff are in different areas of the business—one possibly in programming, one or two in our support department(s), etc. This leads me to my questions:
1.Where should / can I start looking for information as how I should go about looking at and evaluating individual(s) possible for layoff? One caveat that I should mention is that the average age of our employees are 35 years old and are not in a protected racial minority class. In addition, we have a good even number of men and women in each department. I will be consulting our attorney however I wanted to do some initial ‘leg-work’ prior to being charged for attorney fees.
2.One of the employees that possibly will leave due to natural attrition could alleviate the situation of us having to layoff one or more employees. This employee’s husband currently works for and possibly could be effected by the HP / Compaq merger. Upper management would like to ‘feel her out’ to see what could be going on with her husband’s job. They would like to see if her husband is planning to stay with HP / Compaq which may or may not create the need for them to move out of the state (and consequently leave employment with our organization). Then if he is not planning to stay with HP / Compaq, what her intentions are. My question is can we even legally ask these questions of this employee? Am I treading too close to a legal line that I should not cross?
Any assistance that can be provided would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Mel in CO
Comments
Mel: I think one of the first things your attorney will recommend that you do is compile a list of employees by department, break each departmental list down further by age, race, sex, and put the list in chronological order, most tenured person first. This will give you and the attorney a clear snapshot of the makeup of each department being considered for layoff. He'll (scuse me, she'll) also recommend probably that you layoff within department, not allowing people to bump into other departments thus creating a bit more difficulty for you, unless you actually want to go that route, thus anyone qualified for another job in other departments can bump into that department if they are senior. This complicates your procedure greatly. If there are no real performance issues to drive the direction of the layoff, and it's as clean and simple as tenure, and your layoff doesn't tend to adversely affect one racial or age group or the other, it may be very simple (if something as emotional as layoff can be that). But, I do recommend that you might want to go ahead and work up the chart before you call the attorney. I think that'll be the first several questions you'll be asked. Almost forgot yoour other question: I don't see any problem whatsoever with trying to ascertain if someone will be moving. That could affect your entire plan and even might forestall it altogether as long as you don't ask somebody, "Weren't you planning to retire, old guy?". P.S. Do not believe that I have horns and fangs. I will send a picture of my creampuff self. Good luck with your procedure.
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Mel in CO
Good luck!