When (if) they call your number, how does it happen? Is it your manager? Someone in HR? Do they set up a meeting time with you in advance for a different reason? Any things you should do to be prepared?
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@f0 Agree with this. BL’s are given a task of X amount to cut/save. It’s up to the manager to decide who to cut based upon a 4 box comparison to achieve the task. I’m a manager and have been involved in these decisions, unfortunately.
@bg
Direct managers do have some control because before layoff decisions are made they need to complete 5 box assessments (something like that) on all employees. So while it very well might be done at a higher level (to protect from age/race/gender issues), those manager assessments play a big part of who gets cut.
Contrary to popular opinion, HR is not the one deciding layoffs.
The decision comes from the top. The CEO tells each vice chair to cut a percentage of their payroll. Or she might give them a hard number. Obviously bigger business lines get larger targets.
It goes down the chain and at some level the dollar amount gets converted into a headcount number.
So it might have started out as "cut $1,800,000 of payroll" and that got turned into a head count of 30 people averaging a little over $60,000 each across a division of 3,000. Or it could have started as "cut 1% of payroll budget" .
Some manager or director up the chain (very rarely the direct manager) picks the people.
HR dictates the exact date. The manager knows weeks in advance. Several meetings happen to prep the managers. HR dictates the exact script, the exact answers to common questions and concerns. The manager is responsible for reading the script EXACTLY. HR handles all of the paperwork and processing in workday.
HR and Legal's job together is to execute the CEO's order and to make sure all paperwork, and legal perspective is covered. Thus a script.
In 2023 I was given 1 or more people that reported to me as people who would be eliminated (I'm hiding details to keep me anonymous). And on a specific date dictated to me. I had ZERO control over it. I had no choice. I called them on teams. I read the script and notified them their last date. Done.
We go into a myopic mindset and just get it done. Like ki-ling cats in a shelter. I couldn't sleep the night before. But I have no choice but to go into robot mode.
It's very cold and calculated. It su-ks complete a-s. But unlike some of you who think the manager has any say in this, or doesn't care, you don't have a clue about what it means to be a direct manager. No decent manager enjoys it or has any control over it. You either follow the order or you get fired. It's part of the job we signed up for. Until 2022 we hoped it would never happen. But here we are. I keep being a manager so you don't have to. My own date can happen tomorrow for all I know.
NO ONE except the CEO has a choice in this.
We have billionaires with 5 yachts and 20 mansions to take care of, and their precious tax breaks Trump and Reagan gave them. They need more money before we ever can consider surviving ourselves. It's a new world of Wall Street demanding growth year over year for their bonuses despite war, inflation, cr-p job market, ai and India taking our jobs, etc..
Welcome to the new normal.
I was laid off the Tuesday after a bank holiday. My manager scheduled a 1-1 first thing that morning. I knew something was up for a while before that though because our 1-1s were absolutely useless. He told me during the call that my last day would be a month after that day so I’d better still do my work within expectations. I had accrued a ton of sick time so I used it all up during the next 4 weeks.
Teams meetings, short notice. I do know someone who was contacted in the afternoon for a team meeting the next day, but that seems like an exception. Everyone else i spoke to about their experience was the short notice story.
@OP I work remotely. I received a Teams call with my boss and a complete stranger. It took me 1 second to realize it was an HR person. I shouted to my roommate in the next room before I picked up the call and yelled "It looks like I'm getting laid off!"
Once, I was working for a giant ad agency. One day, when I got out of the elevator, there was a small group in the lobby. A person from that group told me to go to room "A" (There were 2 rooms labeled with an A post-it note and a B post-it note) . Both rooms were packed with coworkers. Then they announced those in room B were being laid off and to leave them alone as they cleared their cubicles. I vividly recall, the man standing next to me in room A was shaking like a leaf....
You'll get a meeting invitation with very short notice. At the meeting your manager or your manager's manager will read a script, and they will not deviate from it.
This is a good time to ask them really uncomfortable questions to make them squirm. Don't let the rat b@stards off easy.
It really depends on your business line. In most cases, the meetings are scheduled last minute.
Your leadership has most likely known about this for some time. I was made aware in 2022 about a month prior to having to layoff some of my people and last year I was made aware 1 week before.
It seems to change every time we go through a RIF exercise.