Eh, good advice but I have seen "essential" people or teams get laid off, even at the detriment of the company. Management and C-suite don't care - they face no consequences.
I echo the other comment saying just save up as much money.
There's a much longer answer to this that factors in your savings, what your resume looks like and minimizing the chances of this happening to you in the future.
Two immediate pieces of advice:
1. Shore up relationships with your colleagues and get their non-work contact info if you don't have it. Make this network stronger. Former colleagues can recommend you and pull you in at new companies they get hired at. They can also refer you to job openings they know about but aren't pursuing. It's one step of many, but people can get caught up in worrying and applying elsewhere, they forget about this network of colleagues right in front who can help each other. Keep in touch, check in, ask for leads and referrals if you are still looking, offer them if you have them.
2. Don't freak out. But if you are really worried, since 20% of staff are staying for now so: A laid off employee can ask management if they can stay and help for a few more weeks at reduced pay and while he/she looks for something else. I don't recommend doing that, looking for a job can be a full-time job. Never hurts to offer and ask.
Companies can "promise" anything they want, but unless you get it in writing in a legally binding form, like a contract, it's not worth anything. If conditions deteriorate, they will have to lay off again. At best you'll get a "I'm sorry this had to happen. I know I said it wouldn't last week/last month/last year...". To be fair, sometimes the managers themselves get laid off too, despite (or sometimes because of) their best intentions. We're all just numbers on a spreadsheet.
Nobody expects morale to be great after layoffs. Do what you can, if you can, and try to compartmentalize and focus on what you're good at. Start looking for other work in the meantime, but don't count on being able to find another job, because many companies are folding in this economy and there's still a glut of programmers.
This isn't your fault. Companies exist to make money, and you're just another disposable cog in the wheel. Management exists to serve the owners/shareholders, not you, so your choices are really either to become more flexible (look for other jobs and careers, knowing that some will do better than others) or to become indispensable (either be exceptionally good at your job, or set up systems that only you can maintain).
Anxiety won't do you much good here because very little of it is actually under your control anyway. Just breathe; it's not up to you. Ultimately it doesn't really matter how hard you work and how great your code (or whatever) is; if your team isn't a good fit or your managers didn't put in the right reports or you didn't impress the right high-level person... you're disposable. And frankly, mostly invisible. It's unlikely anybody spends too much time thinking about your contributions to the company anyway, so don't spend too much time thinking about the company either. Most of us aren't special. That's okay though.
Don't let work define you! Develop other hobbies, enforce a strict 9-5 schedule for yourself and don't work late. Say "no" to things that break your work-life balance and find other ways to accrue happiness.
Especially in a startup atmosphere, it's basically gambling. You win some, you lose some. Just don't bet your whole life on it.
If you are going to do layoffs, you do it once. Rip the bandaid. Two or more, and you are seriously affecting morale and productivity.
But, if that happens, I've learned from the Twitter-related threads here that it's best to volunteer and take a nice severance, as those go down to almost nothing if you wait and get caught in the later rounds of layoffs.
You can often see a layoff coming, and can play this massively to your advantage. I did this, it wasn't hard to see it, poor profit results, other people getting laid off, my skills in that job weren't core to its business, knew it'd hit me eventually. What one can do is research carefully, plan your next move. Then, when the axe falls, execute your plan. go make the move you were too scared/risk-averse to before. Layoffs are great ways to get bits of mortgage paid off, do some necessary home improvements. (In tech that is. Obviously being laid off would be a nightmare in an industry with less opportunities). Basically, always plan for a layoff. I know lots of people that say being laid off was the best thing that ever happened to them.
In my personal experience some random senior employee isn't even pennies on the dollar when it comes to the total amount factored into the layoffs that are in the hundreds of millions.
The bigger factor is are you in a position that requires the company longer to replace you? If so you may just be in that shit position of being kept on another 6 months until the next round of layoffs and get a package half as good.
As the first poster said always get out first if you can as the packages never get better the worse a company does.
Never fool yourself into thinking you're too amazing to be let go and that is why you 'survived' this round of layoffs. The worst case is as I said, you are too good to be let go of yet.
I've been through the dotcom bust, where my company went through 6 layoffs in a single year. We went from 1400 to about 600. I survived them, but it was a terrible experience, and after a while, people stopped working and just gossiped about the next layoff.
First off, if you're going to do layoffs, make sure it's one and done. This means, probably cutting more than you have to so that you don't have to keep making layoffs in 6 months, etc. The quicker you can get back to hiring, the better it will be for morale.
Layoff your lowest performers first. If you don't, then your top performers will leave you, and you will get crippled within less than a year. Don't do something like ask everyone to take a paycut, because it means that your top performers suffer just as much as your low performers. You should get rid of your low performers quickly.
Try to give as generous a severance package that you can. And meet with each of them face-to-face if possible, but with several dozen it's probably impossible.
Make it quick and let them leave with dignity. That means let them say bye to their friends, and making sure that every single question they may have answered. COBRA, unvested options, Unemployment benefits, etc. Personally I wouldn't escort them out or lock their accounts unless you think that they are going to cause problems. Hopefully they won't.
Do all the layoffs before lunch. Have a meeting with the rest of the company after the layoffs, after lunch and explain why you had to do it, and explain your plan to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
Never tell the employees how YOU feel. No one cares.
In the past, HNers have mentioned that if you admit you're going to lay people off, then your best performers will leave. Is that true?
Any kind of layoffs will cause your best performers to leave regardless of whether you tell people ahead of time. It's a strong signal that the company is in survival mode instead of growth mode, which at least means raises and bonuses are in doubt and at worst means the company is going under soon. It's better to accept that you're going to lose more people than you plan for and deal with the fallout as best you can.
I've worked at companies during layoffs, and have been a manager at these companies as well (though fortunately never had to lay someone off personally). My advice:
- Managers should tell their direct reports personally, rather than delegating to someone else like HR. I still remember, unfondly, when one manager didn't want the burden of delivering the bad news and found someone else to do it.
- Give the people who will be laid off as much time as possible to send work emails, talk to colleagues, get taken to lunch, etc. As <steven2012> said, let them leave with dignity. Your employment agreement already prohibits misuse of corporate resources and criminal law prohibits theft of company property; as a general rule there's no need to have a security guard hovering over a desk.
- Write a letter of recommendation if your corporate policy allows and your employee's performance merits it. Give it to them in printed form and PDF. Don't merely offer to do it if they ask.
- As many others have said, do only one round of layoffs. Company morale can survive a single round. It may not survive repeated rounds, with nobody knowing when (and where) the next axe is going to fall.
- Communicate honestly with your remaining employees to the extent policy allows. The best managers will admit it if they don't know something.
There’s nothing you can do. Layoffs are a strong negative signal to employees for a number of reasons. If you don’t want people to quit, don’t do layoffs.
I have in the past few weeks survived a round of layoffs, fully expect another round this year if things don't improve. What can I do? try to save a bit more money and keep looking for other jobs (but what if they go into layoffs as well? What industry/sector is "safe" these days?).
You can always be laid off. The chances are much higher if you work on things unrelated to the core business at a startup that is losing money (or worse, not making money).
Obviously, if you're the junior hire on a team of 1,000 people doing third-derivative things that relate to revenue, YMMV.
Let’s say you are an employee at a company that does mass layoffs. They do not lay you off like everyone else and keep you on. What is the best course of action to take at that point?
Does anyone have advice on what to do if you think your company will lay you off? For example, would it be best to get laid off, then immediately seek unemployment? Or, best to negotiate NOW for a severance package that includes healthcare in hopes of your boss thinking that is a better option for them? Or, resign for some reason?
As a founder who has laid people off in the past, I think the kindest thing you can do (for everyone involved) is give them as much notice as you possibly can. No matter what pay-rate the employees are at, assume they're living paycheck to paycheck, and that a sudden loss of their income will be much worse than a loss 2-3 months from now.
My second suggestion is to go out of your way to be the best reference these people have ever had. Write letters of rec, tell them to list you personally as a reference (with your cell #), etc. And if you can, use your network to help them find new opportunities.
For those who remain, just try to be as honest as you can. If their jobs are possibly insecure, let them know as well.
Well, one alternative is not to get into that situation in the first place.
> Isn't it a lot better to have a single all-hands meeting where you announce layoffs, the people who are affected will be contacted by their manager with severance information, and the plan going forward?
Well, maybe. But if my employer announced layoffs, I would be looking for a new job the next day regardless of whether I was included. For one thing, 10% layoffs is unlikely to correspond to 10% reduction in total work, so my workload just grew by 10%, and somehow I doubt I'm getting a 10% raise to compensate. For another, the company has now lost its ability to attract top-tier talent, for several years if not forever.
Ah you beat me to it. Layoffs like this mitigate the drama for sure, but also mitigates legal liability, which just goes to show you; you're a fool to remain loyal to the company. A lot of the people fired were rated highly in their performance reviews, I'm sure. But if you're too ambitious or criticized the boss for making a mistake or just looked at him wrong... you're gone.
One thing I learned the hard way a couple of years ago - when the company starts cutting back, you're better off being in the first couple of rounds of layoffs than being a "nonexpendable" who they hang on to until the bitter end. I was at a struggling startup that went through round after round of layoffs, offering generous severance packages in each round, until there were only like 10 of us left. Then one day they completely ran out of money and I showed up and the doors were locked and there was a note informing us that we were unemployed effective immediately and we would be paid out the remainder of the week.
This is plain bad advice that sounds smart because it comes from the "ultra-practical" but short-term corner of thinking.
In reality being a good person is what pays off long-term. If I'm laid off, I will continue my professional journey elsewhere - perhaps on my own, maybe even with more satisfaction?
Ive been at a company with multiple rounds of small layoffs. Each time they didn’t want to cut too deep or thought ‘maybe this will be enough’. It wasn’t.
It was a total moral DISASTER.
If you need to cut, cut. But multiple layoffs will kill you.
I echo the other comment saying just save up as much money.
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