Lay offs
sonny
2,117 Posts
Greetings,
We are facing laying off two employees. We seldom do this and last time we did, we just sent the employee home b/c frankly it was as much a performance issue as anything else.
This time one of the ee's has been here over 14 years. .Those of you with more experience. .how do you handle this? Send them home immeadiately? Allow them to work a week or so to say their goodbyes? Have a small gathering? HELP, I HATE THIS.
We are facing laying off two employees. We seldom do this and last time we did, we just sent the employee home b/c frankly it was as much a performance issue as anything else.
This time one of the ee's has been here over 14 years. .Those of you with more experience. .how do you handle this? Send them home immeadiately? Allow them to work a week or so to say their goodbyes? Have a small gathering? HELP, I HATE THIS.
Comments
Everywhere else I worked we let the ee's go and they were gone - from now on that is how it will be handled here as well.
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KSR. . thanks. . I have certainly heard your arguments before, but also fear as people just disappear the rumor mill will be even worse in terms of who is next. .
Others who have not had KSR experience?
Some of the short term employees did their best to get as much out of us as possible, while giving as little as possible in return. One of the managers appeared to feel pushed out. Other than that, people were just sad but understood.
I think how you handle this really depends on your culture and your situation. If you decide to have the employee go immediately, try to at least pay them some severance. Knowing they are still being paid while they are out looking will help reduce the immediate shock and strain.
Whatever happens, this will be a tough time for all of you. Your bosses might consider reducing everyone's pay instead of layoffs next time. I understand that this method helps reinforce employee morale and loyalty, making the company much better off in the long run, while still helping the bottom line in the short run.
Good luck!
Nae
When we felt we had to lay off a third employee all of us remaining offered to take a percentage cut in pay to save the his job at least for the first quarter of this year. After the first quarter we should be able to reinstate the original salaries and make up the difference of the percentage loss over the rest of 2009. (Hopefully)
Generally speaking, a layoff implies that economic conditions necessitate trimming the workforce (lack of work, lost a contract, etc.). In turn, that implies that if economic conditions improve, the workforce may be enlarged. If you let someone go because of economic conditions, they will generally assume they are eligible for rehire.
So... If you connect these dots, as tenuous as they may be, you'll see that you don't want to use the term "layoff" unless you are prepared to bring these same individuals back if conditions improve. If it's performance-based, it's a discharge, or a termination, or any number of other terms, but probably NOT a layoff. Same with a RIF or a 'restructuring'. The exception would be if you can demonstrate that the employees you terminated were the ones with the lowest performance levels, and if that's the case you'd better communicate it and be ready to back it up.
Believe me Frank. .I know what you are saying, ,I just couldn't convince those above me. .
Both of these are truly lack of work. .
Also, we did pay a severance to the individuals we let go.
challenge their unemployment claims.
In addition, we had the local UI contact come in to help facilitate the paperwork as well as training sessions for Microsoft programs and helped those being displaced with resumes, cover letters and interview workshops.
We also met one on one to let people know what to expect and to cover questions they had especially as it related to benefits.
In this situation, we had time to plan for this in advance which helped.
Whatever you can do to help make a really tough situation helps difuse it as those remaining pay close attention to how you treat their co-workers (and so do their/your customers). I had customers contacting me to tell me that they weren't happy about losing their contact but appreciated that we treated them respectfully and did what we could to take care of them.