Layoff Spin

Despite my best efforts to stop the massive layoffs, they continue to occur every day. About 500,000 workers lost their jobs last month. At the rate we’re going this month, it’s likely that number will be reached again, if not surpassed. Instead of spending days, weeks, months trying to figure out how to save jobs, employers are using this time to figure out how to lay employees off — and how to communicate the layoffs. Thus, the title of this post, which is the title of an article in Slate Magazine.

As Slate notes, there are different theories on how to lay people off, and those theories are debated internally everytime a layoff occurs. There’s the plain mean approach. There’s the direct, less mean approach. There’s the kinder, gentler approach. There’s the be prepared for the worst approach. For $247, you can even buy the Employee Termination Guidebook, which advises employers to move quickly before the targeted employees start “telling lies about you, turning others against you and destroying your reputation.” Yikes!

What’s particularly insightful about the Slate article is that it includes a link to an 18-page PowerPoint presentation outlining a company’s “restructuring communications plan” accidentally emailed throughout the entire company by the CPO (Chief People Officer). I don’t know if it was taken from the Employee Termination Guidebook, but it looks like most layoff termination plans that take days, weeks, months to compose, even if you take it right out of a book.

One reason you know this is because of the words and phrases appearing throughout the PowerPoint. There’s a lot of “messaging” to be done, divided between “internal constituents” and “external constituents.” There’s a lot of corporatespeak about right-sizing, focus, core services, streamlining, positioning, transitioning, winning, strategy, collaboration, leverage, accountability, strength, prosperity, and confidence.

There’s an important message to the people you don’t want to get nervous or lose, somtimes called “critical talent.” We see you as a leader. Tell your colleagues that the company is strong and building for the future. We need you to be inspired and to inspire others.

There’s also an important message to the doomed, punctuated with words like unfortunately, difficult news, hard look, no longer, last day, severance, outplacement, and clean out your desk. Finally, there are the obligatory and always helpful FAQs (frequently asked questions).

Then comes the employment litigation, union activity and bad publicity. That’ll allow some of the company’s critical talent to spend more time on stuff that isn’t part of their job descriptions and doesn’t help the company. As I’ve tried to explain previously, I just don’t get layoffs. I guess I nonetheless appreciate them in a twisted sort of way. They keep labor and employment lawyers quite busy.