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Here is my second Forum post. This one is also touches on one my favorite topics – careers
Another week. Another flood of LinkedIn goodbye posts.
Talented people thanking colleagues after being locked out of their systems. No chance to pack their desks. No final email. No dignity.
Some companies now send layoff notices at 3:00 a.m. Others run two Zoom calls at the same time—one for those “safe,” another for those gone. Ten minutes. Meeting over.
Let me ask this plainly: When did this become acceptable?
And to those still employed—are you relieved? Or just quietly shaken, wondering when it’s your turn?
I use the word love deliberately. When employees are treated as expendable line items, layoffs become the easiest lever to pull. Convenient. Fast. Emotionless.
But organizations that truly believe “people are our greatest asset” don’t behave this way. They hire carefully. They plan responsibly. And when separation is unavoidable, they act like adults—with empathy, transparency, and respect.
I’ve laid people off in my 40-year career. I’m not proud of it—but I am proud of how it was done. Performance-based. Thoughtful. Humane. People were given time, support, and their self-worth intact.
That standard is disappearing.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Large companies need collective representation for salaried employees and managers. Especially when mass layoffs are on the table. Decisions of this magnitude should not happen behind closed doors with only financial voices in the room.
This isn’t about protecting poor performance. It’s about protecting basic human decency.
Maybe it’s time to study how parts of Europe and Asia handle workforce reductions—what they get right, and what we can do better. And maybe—just maybe—the Chief People Officer should have as much influence in the C-suite as the CFO.
So I’ll ask what many are afraid to say out loud: Have we lost our values when it comes to layoffs—or do we still have the courage to reclaim them?
👇 Thoughts? Disagreements? Hard truths? Let’s talk. #layoffs #careers #values #culture
I’ve downsized thousands, put several separation packages together over the years. To the extent possible we asked for volunteers, but that is not always possible.
You have some good points, but the other side of the coin is that companies are so system dependent, they can’t afford the risk of disgruntled workers sabotaging the companies systems before they leave so the consequence may be the harsh measures you mention.
When we fired someone they were immediately escorted off the property.
I agree that companies in many cases could plan better and avoid over staffing, but not always.
Thank you, Dick. Nothing should stop companies to show their human side and that is something no systems should stop human beings from doing.
I was laid off or let go twice. The first was when the company had literally no money left and couldn’t make payroll. Turns out it was greed. The owner had taken all the cash out of the company when it was making good money. He was a bad businessman and a bad boss.
The second time was when my employer’s CEO was fired and a new CEO was recruited. The new CEO had to do something different, so he chopped up the engineering organization and dropped headcount. There was no compelling reason beyond a demonstration of the ability to make changes. It was not a happy place to work and I was glad to be out of there.
The next job was with a small company that lived hand-to-mouth the entire time I was there. I decided to quit before I was let go. The company lasted another year or so and then dissolved. I had a new job within a month of leaving.
My final employer was based in the US but wholly owned by a French company. From 2008 to 2020, there were no layoffs even when the US mortgage/banking collapse provided a reasonable excuse. It was the best job I ever had. Since I retired, some folks have been placed on “performance improvement contracts” and eventually released, so something has changed, but not dramatically.
I was the last employee hired in the US in my department back in 2010. We had at least fifty people in the group back then. Only seven of us are still here. Four retired, and the rest were laid off over the years. Two definitely deserved it, the rest were simply victims of outsourcing and cutbacks.
We had no idea who would be next on the chopping block. We talked about the HR sniper waiting to pick us off one by one.
Up until two years ago, they paid severance pay of two weeks per year of service, up to a max of a year’s pay, so at least most of the people let go had something to fall back on while looking for a new job. Now you’d be lucky to get four weeks’ pay.
The company culture is terrible now, especially since McKinsey came in to revamp the org structure.
I happen to work with a great team of people, but we’re all in our late fifties or early sixties and just waiting it out until retirement. I have 409 days to go until we make the last college payment, and I might quit then, or wait until the end of ’27.
When people ask if they should accept a job offer here, I say “Only if it’s your only option. If you do, keep looking and get out asap.”
Don’t rush to embrace all aspects of the European model. Having run my own business and employed staff for nearly thirty years, I can attest it can be restrictive and frustrating. I can give you examples of staff playing the system by taking six months of ‘sick’ leave and my business having to pay them for the whole sickness period—even when they’re on a foreign vacation—then, when they come back to work, having to approve their statutory vacation leave that has built up during the six months’ sickness absence.
My friend, who also ran his own business, didn’t want to risk expanding because of the costs involved with employment law and the difficulties of letting staff go without big expenses. Essentially, it inhibits innovation and entrepreneurship because of employment legislation heavily tilted towards employees rather than employers trying to create more jobs.
Sad fact is that there are always people out to game the system.
One time I was sent to Texas to explain the severance package to all employees of a company we were closing. 30 minutes before the meeting was to start the President of the company wished me good luck. I couldn’t understand why until he told me he hadn’t told the 100 plus employees they were out of a job, he thought he would leave it to me.
Agree, Mark.I worked in a French company and got frustrated with the workforce laws. The thing we can learn from the Europeans is how to manage workforce reductions . There is a balance where you have to take care of employees, due to strong work union even for salaried employees. This evens it
The movie “Up In The Air” about a man whose job is to travel around the country, firing people, came out in 2009.
So the practice started before that…
Yes, but companies were much more emphatic than they are now
Not so sure— my brother built a great career in the 1980s—all the way to VP of a Fortune 50 company—by walking into the corporate offices and announcing “your parking lot is too big!”
At the same time, I worked for state government with a labor union contract that made it impossible to get rid of the most incompetent worker. I don’t have an answer to this— but I’m sure simplistic solutions wont work.
And I agree with Mark Crothers—not seeing a better way in Europe.
Hi Marilyn
I am not against layoffs, but against using it without due empathy and other means to cut costs. You are talking about getting rid of incompetent employees, which I fully support. Do you really think today’s layoffs and how it is done has anything to do with the capability or competence of the workers or employees? No
Honestly, I wouldn’t be as worried about empathy as I would about finding another job,