Real Talk: Layoff Chaos

Pretend I’m not here.

Imagine this. A company is growing at a rapid pace. Leadership tells HR to fill open positions with qualified candidates as quickly as possible. Everything is great. Then, suddenly it isn't.

Revenue isn’t aligning with the projections anymore, and the company is overstaffed. HR professionals brought on to help with recruiting and hiring are now being asked to do just the opposite. Leadership is relying on HR to figure out how to manage the layoffs — how to gracefully let go of both the loyal and the new to boost the bottom line.

Now that layoffs are necessary, HR meets with Legal to revisit the company’s severance guidelines, severance package offerings, and the overall employee exit process. After those details are in place, it’s time to determine who will stay and who will go.

HR is now responsible for ensuring that the layoff selection criteria won’t result in bias, a mishap that could put the company on the wrong side of a discrimination lawsuit. Once the employee list is assessed for risk and approved, HR rolls up their sleeves to begin the ‘real’ work - calculating severance, creating severance packages, notifying employees, and tracking signatures.

The HR team works around the clock, hyper-vigilant about ensuring the accuracy of each detail. For a process that’s so important, it’s awfully manual. After the repetitive, monotonous work is done, HR peer reviews their team’s work to ensure everything looks right. Finally, the end is in sight.

Then, out of nowhere, Leadership has an announcement: “We need to push the terminations back a month. HR, make that happen.” Now it’s time to re-run calculations and update every single one of the severance packages with new dates.

Because of HR and Legal’s tireless efforts, the layoff ultimately goes smoothly and the employees have a positive experience. However, the team is burnt out; the process was just too stressful.

For those of you who have been in the trenches, we know it is a thankless job. But we also know how important it is for you to provide your employees with a positive exit experience. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it makes good business sense given that one mistake in the process could tarnish the company’s brand.

This is precisely why Janice and I co-founded Onwards HR. Whether it is a reduction in force or an individual separation, we believe that employee exits matter. Our mission is to make separations better for employers and employees. 

If you are considering layoffs or are even in the middle of one, we know your pain. We’d love to show you how our separations platform can transform your process. Onwards HR fosters collaboration, streamlines your workflow, and automates severance pay and packages in just 1-2 weeks.

There’s a better way to say goodbye.

Sarah Rodehorst, CEO