Layoffs and the bare minimum
Every day, more headlines are showing up with the same declaration: X company is cutting X jobs. It’s not a surprise anymore. Waves of layoffs are hitting the tech sector hard as of late, and they just keep on coming.
What is surprising is the focus in the media on how said layoffs have been carried out. We’ve all read about the cringeworthy (and honestly, insulting) method by which a certain billionaire dismantled many of Twitter’s teams. There’s also been plenty of praise for companies like Meta and Stripe, who announced their layoffs to employees through humble, well-crafted memos.
The truth is that there are no good ways to find out about losing your job and livelihood. There are only bad ways and really bad ways. The bar is so low that employers are being lauded for simply approaching the employee notification step with courtesy and honesty, when really that’s the bare minimum. It signals a commitment to open communication, but that commitment is coming far too late in the game to really matter.
Of course, lack of communication is not the only factor that leads to layoffs. Financial miscalculations and the unpredictable winds of change are often the direct cause of job cuts. That said, getting out in front of layoffs through employer-employee communication can play a huge role in mitigating or avoiding them entirely.
We’re talking about a specific kind of communication here: the kind that comes with embracing talent mobility and workforce redeployment. We’re talking about giving employees space to communicate what they can do and what they want to do, so we can plan accordingly.
When we don’t know what our workers’ skills and career desires are, we’re shutting ourselves off from any number of possibilities. There are solutions out there that let people share that valuable information and keep it up to date, so when priorities and circumstances change we have the comprehensive view of our talent pool we need to shift our workforce accordingly.
Companies facing down layoffs in one area usually have openings elsewhere. Rather than laying people off, why not redeploy them to other business areas or teams? Mobility and workforce redeployment ensure that all options are always on the table, and no one has to get hurt - including the brand.
Right now, companies executing layoffs are only openly communicating with employees when it’s too late to do anything else but cut them. Forgive us for not celebrating their heartfelt emails, but there could have been another way: a way where people didn’t have to lose their jobs, and organizations didn’t have to suffer the consequences.