How do you lay someone off? A question about the procedure

In My Humble Opinion
21

At one place I worked, they would send a FedEx letter on Friday saying don’t come in, we’ll send you your stuff. Once the person didn’t get the letter and showed up for work and they let them work for a while while they got themselves in order. I doubt they paid any severance if they felt they had a case to fire them.

At my current job, if you are laid off you get two weeks’ pay for every year you worked. They time the announcement so that you work for your severance up the day you leave, unless they think you wil be trouble and then you go early.

22

I work for a consulting (environmental) engineering firm. It’s a large company, but, as we say, it’s a small world. So the layoff procedure cuts both ways. If an employee acts in an unprofessional way when he or she finds out, good luck to a reference. If a company throws a long time employee out on their ear, everyone in the engineering community will know about at the next conference. Either way, the word gets around.

I was laid off a very long time ago after a year with a company. Two weeks severance, and I could work it or not. I didn’t have a lot of experience and I wanted to make copies of my work so I stayed. Depressing when it happened (I was newly married and it took months to get another job), but it ended up being for the best.

In the company that I’m in now, they want to get the laid off employee out of the office until they can get notice out to everyone (knowing how the rumor mill works). However, the employee can typically come back in a day or so to collect their things. If you’ve ever seen an engineer’s office, you’ll know how many reference books they own. My own belongings would fill my car. If they tried to limit anyone to two boxes, most people would start to bring their references home (preparatory to looking for a new job.) Computer access is terminated, but we are allowed to store up to one CD of personal data on the server, and they’ll copy that out if you ask. They’ll help you to put a resume together, and that might mean getting copies of your work from the network server. Severance is two weeks. However, they will also offer a weeks compensation for every year of service, providing you sign an agreement not to seek legal recompense. This is an industry where the staff may have formed close alliances with clients, and may well be asked to help to close down a job even after going off to work somewhere else. It’s tough to get the axe, but they do try to do it as humanely as they can. People recognize that and behave accordingly. If I worked for some of the places I am reading about here, I can’t imagine putting a lot of myself into my work (self-respect notwithstanding), knowing that I could be tossed out like the trash.

Termination with cause - I haven’t seen a lot of this, but it has always been for unprofessional conduct. The chief offense is trying to take clients away from the company, and they will frogmarch the offender to the door for that one.

23

Spoken like a man who didn’t spend the last few months helping lay off 75% of his call center’s work force. I’m the guy who did that.

24

My experience jibes with Plynck.

Until recently, when I took a job with a public utility, I also worked for an environmental engineering consulting company. I resigned and gave my two weeks notice, and worked like a dog for the next two weeks closing out and turning over projects. My computer access was not cut off until my last day (two weeks after giving notice), and everyone took me out for drinks afterward.

I’ve seen a handful of engineers and environmental scientists laid off/fired over the years, and everyone was given two weeks notice, which they worked. I did see one sales guy who was escorted immediately out of the building.

25

My experience has all been in retail hourly jobs, so there is no “leave today and we’ll pay you for two more weeks” thingy! In my job, if you were to quit voluntarily, you would be expected to give notice and work out that notice…if you are an employee of some value, and full-time. If you are part time, you will probably still get hours for the next two weeks, if you want them, while we try to hire a replacement. If you were a pain in the butt, you might find there are few hours available for those next two weeks.

If you are being let go for some reason, it’s gone that day if fired, or you just find you aren’t on the schedule for the next few weeks and we tell you we’ve had to cut back. But that doesn’t happen very often. We have seasonal employees who know when their jobs will be ending way in advance (like…“we won’t have you on the schedule at all starting the day after Christmas”) and they had better work their shifts before then!

I’ve always told my daughter it’s best to give two weeks notice if you’ve found a new job, and to tell the new job you can start in two weeks…but after the last few jobs…I don’t think that advice holds anymore. We should have known…she’d seen other people give notice and been angrily told “Don’t bother to come in for your shift tomorrow” by her manager, but she never realized it would happen to her…and she really needed the money she would have earned…the schedule for those two weeks was already posted, and she was working full shifts. But as soon as she said she was giving her notice, it was out the door. Her work friends had wanted to give her a going-away party, and they were shocked, too. And this manager didn’t care why you were leaving…whether you were going back to school, moving out of state, new job…didn’t matter. There are no company secrets to steal, no other workers to coerce, and she had worked there with no bad feeling between her and the manager. But the woman was vindictive and took every resignation seriously. Her work friends (who did get together and give her a little farewell party) said they had to seriously scramble to cover her job until someone else was hired and trained, and that it wasn’t easy, since they were short-staffed to begin with. Just seems short-sighted to be so rude to a good employee who is simply leaving to pursue other opportunities.

26

Since the OP was specifically about layoffs, I’ll confine my comments to those (I’ve been the manager responsible for more firings than I like to think about, but those are another topic).

In one case, where I was essentially running a company that was the only going concern among several shells owned by a holding company, when the parent decided to get out of the business we were in, I was asked to help arrange for a buyer for the intellectual property. I did so, and once the deal was agreed to, I met privately with each of the remaining employees to explain that we would be wrapping up operations as of a particular date, that they were welcome to remain at work until that time, and that I would do whatever I could to help them with the transition. For one of the support people, I also worked out a deal with the acquiring company so that she could continue to work providing support to customers (since they had no one with the relevant experience) for a certain time after the deal closed. Most found other employment by the final day, as did I – I got on a plane on Thursday night, delivered the hard drives containing all of the relevant information (source code, manuals, marketing material, etc.) to the buyer on Friday, flew home that night, and started a new job on Monday morning.

The next time I was involved in a layoff, it was on the other side of the table – I was working for a California-based company, but working from home in Atlanta. We’d been through one round of layoffs a couple of months before, and knew that there were more coming. The project I was responsible for was designed to provide infrastructure for growth that had not materialized, so I knew the end was near. Because I was a remote employee they didn’t have to do much beyond cutting off my VPN access and disabling my e-mail account. I got a phone call from my manager informing me I was being laid off, indicating that I’d receive a package the next day via FedEx with documents to sign and return and with information on COBRA coverage, etc., and asking me to ship back the laptop and other company hardware I had.

My next company was acquired, a little less than a year after I rejoined them, by a bigger company. Obviously, some people were retained after the acquisition and some were not. On the day the deal closed, we were all told that we would be informed in a private meeting with our manager which group we were in. They scheduled the meetings so that all of those being retained were called in first – they basically told us “here’s your offer letter, hope you’ll stay, now take the rest of the day off and go home”. Once everyone they wanted to keep was out the door, they started in on those who weren’t being asked to stay. Most got severance in exchange for agreeing not to sue, and were escorted out after collecting their things. IT was standing by to terminate access as people left.

Six months later, they cut another group, using basically the same method – I was actually on the road when it happened, so I didn’t see it firsthand, but I did get a call from my manager early in the day letting me know that there were going to be layoffs that day but that I would not be affected.

I also witnessed a mass layoff recently at a customer – I was onsite working on a longterm project, and was there the day they implemented long-rumored layoffs. They basically told everyone in advance that the layoffs would happen on a particular day, and to expect to be available to meet with their manager. They called in the people who were being let go one at a time, then escorted them out. Then, about noon, they basically sent a broadcast message to everyone that they had completed all the staff reductions, and that if they hadn’t been called in they were not affected. Seemed like a pretty stressful way to handle it – not a lot of work got done that day.

27

I was at an auto supplier when they laid off 30 to 35 percent of the staff. They went into a small conference room first thing in the morning and put black paper over the windows. Then they called in workers one at a time over the loud speakers. It went on for 2 days. It was horrible to watch.
While the worker was in the room getting axed the guards went to his cubicle and put all his personal items in a box. Then the guards walked them out the door. They had no chance to tell co workers what was said or done. The cubicle was closed off with yellow tape.

28

Years ago I got laid off from the shipping dept. at a small manufacturer because they needed to get rid of somebody. That’s what I was told, anyway. I was escorted from the office where I received the news out the door. I had enough time to wave bye bye and grab my jacket.

The next time I was laid off I knew it was going to happen about a year before it actually did. That’s when we were told the company was restructuring and we weren’t part of the new structure. The final news was delivered by my manager coming into my office and having a chat. It wasn’t unexpected, but dreaded nonetheless. I got 2 months’ salary just like normal without having to go in to the office, medical benefits for a year, a severance check (they killed it with taxes but it was still nice), it was pretty sweet.

The most recent time I got laid off (end of this June) I knew it was going to happen nearly two months in advance. It was the end of a contract. I pretty much worked on transitioning stuff until the very end. No additional pay was forthcoming.

29

I’m a little confused re: severance package if you don’t sue us. Unless you’re in a union, why would you sue if you were laid off?

30

I’m assuming that that refers to my comment above.

As far as I understand it (not a lawyer here), anyone can sue anyone for any reason, whether there is any real justification or not. And you can usually find a lawyer who’ll take the case. It’s probably someone hoping to wear down the company to get some form of settlement. And people might initially assume that a jury would be more favorably disposed toward older employees with more years with the company. However, the reality is that there is usually not much that is actionable in many layoffs. Our company laid off someone who might have had a case that sounded good to a layperson (female, lesbian, over 50, >15 years with the company which was more seniority than the person who would replace her). She consulted a few attorneys, and they all advised her that she didn’t have much to go on. She ended up taking the package.

I think it really just that companies are trying to head off a nuisance suit. I’ve heard that my company’s one week/year of service is a fairly standard severance package.

31

After I had been with the company for a year, I was to meet with my boss for my annual review. I was a bit surprised she waited so late in the day to call me into her office, it was a Friday, and most everyone had already gone home.

She asked me to sit down, and then said, “The hardest thing I ever had to do in my life was to tell my mother that my brother had just killed himself. This is the second hardest thing I have ever had to do…”

She had tears in her eyes, and I really thought she was going to tell me she had just received word my mother or father had died, or maybe even my brother had committed suicide. So when she told me that the company was being restructured, and my whole department was being eliminated, I was actually relived that meant my family was still alive.

She then went on to tell me that as terrible as I must feel about being laid off, I was really in a good position. When news of the restructuring went out to the regional offices, 12 different regional directors called and asked if that meant I was available to work for them. When asked about salary, she told them double what I was currently making, so I would have my pick of a new job, and make twice as much money.

All things considered, I think she felt worse about the whole thing than I did.

As for the procedure, I worked another two weeks, then was given 2 months severence pay. And my boss did help me negociate a great deal with new region that I had decided I wanted to work for. I don’t think I fully appreciated how unusual all that was until reading the stories in this thread.

32

Can I ask why they did that?

33

Some people feel they may have been descriminated or harassed. Or they just might be pissed off. Maybe I decide to sue my previous employer for sexual harrassment because the boss used to bring us to a strip club ever other week? I may not win, but it could be very embarassing for the company.
I worked at one company a few years ago where we knew layoffs were coming but I think few people actually prepared. I didn’t care because I was finishing grad school and had a job lined up anyway in New York and actually planned to quit in a few months anyway. They basically came around “duck duck goose” style and I guess pulled them into an office. One of the few times I didn’t get laid off.

34

There actually have been cases where all the employees who were laid off just happened to be old, or within 6 months of being vested in the retirement program, or women of childbearing age or had chronic health programs that drove the company’s health insurance costs up, or something similar. Some of the companies involved made the multiple mistake of hiring new employees to directly replace the group that had just been laid off.

Most of the shennanigans ended in the 1980s (or at least companies got a lot better at hiding the agenda) but in smaller companies where layoffs only happen to a handful of employees at a time, it’s still fairly easy to argue a discriminatory intent.