From Las Vegas to Oklahoma, mass layoffs are hitting hospitals and health systems nationwide. And with big-name companies like Microsoft announcing job cuts in bulk, firings are front-of-mind for many leaders.
There is no pleasant way to put one employee on the chopping block — much less several hundred. But there are ways to make the process more pleasant for everyone involved, according to The Wall Street Journal. In a Jan. 9 article, the publication spoke with professionals from McKinsey & Co. to Challenger, Gray & Christmas about best (and worst) practices.
Here are eight tips from the Journal to make downsizing less debilitating:
1. Do one big layoff rather than multiple in succession to retain employees' trust.
2. It is better to lay someone off over Zoom than to ask them to commute to the office only to leave upon arrival.
3. Opt for Wednesday layoffs rather than Fridays so affected employees have time to talk with human resources or benefits providers during the workweek.
4. Work out a minute-by-minute script for how the layoff should commence, from managers' conversations with individual employees to communication across the entire company.
5. Center the conversation on the employee, not yourself. Workers do not want to hear how hard it is for a manager to conduct a layoff while they, themselves, are being laid off.
6. Communicate clearly from the get-go. For example, do not send an email to the entire company saying a certain number of workers will be laid off before specifying to those workers who they are. This creates unnecessary confusion, anxiety and distrust across the workforce.
7. Provide as much help as you can, if you can. One month of severance should be the minimum, according to the Journal.
8. Take full responsibility and be "more generous than you have to be."