Feb

18

How not to handle mass layoffs

Posted by Dan

February 18, 2009 |

The publishing where I work on a full-time/part-time basis laid off nine employees last week. That may not seem like a lot when compared to the massive layoffs taking place across the country. But in our fairly small office, it’s made a significant dent in the size of our workforce.

The higher-ups at my company make a lot of questionable decisions. They ended the layoff drama with yet another.

Before announcing the layoffs, management called workers into one of two conference rooms. One was the lucky room, the one where the people who weren’t fired went. The other, of course, was the unlucky one.

After management broke the news, the folks from the lucky conference room started heading back to their desks. That’s when they were stopped. More management people told them to leave their floor until the people who were fired could pack up their things and get out.

This, of course, prevented employees who in many cases had worked with each other for 10 years or more from saying an official “goodbye.” And it was all done to avoid any possible emotional scenes.

Here’s some news for management: When you fire employees, people are going to get emotional. You can’t just pretend that the axed workers never existed. Management, probably out of their own guilt for not firing the right (read, the salespeople who let everything fall apart in the first place) people, wanted the job cuts to happen quickly and painlessly.

Well, there’s nothing painless about job cuts. And thank goodness for that. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing preventing management from making even more callous decisions than it aleady makes.


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