Respect Your Employees

We are writing this article in the second week of April 2023, and the headlines for the past several months have been about layoffs, mostly in the tech sector. To date, over 150,000 people have been laid off from their jobs since the beginning of the year. And 2023 seems to be turning to the year where many companies are showing their true colors regarding how they really view their employees.

Some of the biggest headlines came from Twitter, who famously laid people off, only to find out that they screwed up and needed to bring back some of the people they laid off just a few days earlier. And this week, McDonald's, in a act of pure cowardliness, sent everyone home from their corporate offices so that they can lay people off remotely and avoid the drama of people walking out the door with a box of personal belongings and a sad face (at a minimum).

Let's take the last example first, since it is the most recent, and such a blatant violation of respect. We recognize that there are circumstances where letting an employee go in person is not feasible. They work remote, and it is not practical (or humane) to make a person come in just to be let go. However, you should have enough respect for your employees that you have a conversation with them IN PERSON whenever practically possible. These people have been good employees (or you wouldn't have kept them on the payroll as long as you had) and worked with your best interest at heart. They deserve the respect of having that discussion in person, face-to-face.

Now let's talk about the Twitter situation.

As a company, you should be taking layoffs quite seriously. The objective of a layoff should NOT be to reduce cost as much as possible as quickly as possible. The objective should be to right-size the organization, ensuring you have the right people in the right positions. Take time to review your entire organization, and look at the people possibly being affected. Do all of these positions need to be eliminated? Are there other positions within the organization that you have openings for, and could some of those open positions be filled by people in areas you are looking to reduce staff in? Google's President, Sundar Pichai, asking him "Don't Be Evil".

This letter is a great example of how employees view layoffs and how they would like to see companies act and treat their employees. They ask that hiring be frozen during layoffs, that former employees be granted priority for rehire, and more. One of the biggest surprises for some were that they were laid off during a medical or parental leave, and in some cases, both partners who worked for Google were laid off at the same time. Companies should take special care to avoid these types of scenarios, and they can only do so by slowing down and taking time to assess all the parties that are being affected.

Companies can do a lot to take care of their employees during these hard times. But first and foremost, they can show their employees some respect.