I’ve been asked to elaborate on how & why people are chosen for layoffs — and how readers can avoid being selected for elimination. I wish I had a simple answer, but there is no single process that determines how Americans are laid off.
- Here’s a good rule of thumb: jobs are eliminated — not people.
Most companies look at their workforce by roles, not by people. Organizations determine which roles will be needed in the future and make tough employment decisions accordingly. This is why talented and innovative people are laid off on a regular basis while chumps and nimrods are retained. In order to avoid accusations of discrimination and bias, most companies will look at the job and try to avoid eliminating a specific person.
That being said, companies will try to find a way to fire assholes during these layoffs. It’s called ‘cleaning house’ or ‘taking out the trash’. The company recognizes that it made a poor hiring decision, and instead of trying to address the performance issue, it will lay the employee off.
You can be pretty sure that you’ll lose your job if you are an asshole (or your boss thinks you’re an asshole).
Feel better? Feel worse? The most important point to remember: you control your behaviors, not your fate. If you want to control your employment status, it’s time to start thinking about how you can opt-out of Corporate America and turn your passions & skills into your own company.
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Good points! I think most layoffs are a combination of the two. There really isn’t more to it than that.
so i’ll i need to do is NOT be an asshole? this is the best advice ever! glad i’m a nice guy.
LOVE your blog!
@Minion The actual selection process is complicated and technical. You don’t control it, so why not just be a decent person, go to work, and focus on the things that matter: kids, animals, family, etc?
@Josh Thanks, dude. You need to not be an asshole because it’s the right thing to do. Whether or not you have a job is irrelevant!
I bet firings are really over workers eating bacon pie (http://ckdake.com/gallery/2008/baconpie/) and thus making the health plans more expensive!
@Nick I’d choose bacon over a job. I’m shallow like that.
two other ways to make the list…
you earn alot of paper$$$
your boss feels threatened by you
You forgot one other way jobs get eliminated: through the fixing of accounting glitches.
My friend Milton told me about that one.
I spent a lot of years in HR and too many of them involved lay-offs. Ugh.
While I agree with your point that often jobs are eliminated not people, it’s also true that often there are several people in the same job and in that case, people are chosen based on how much value they add.
For example, I worked at a video game company. Each development team might have 10 programmers, 10 artists and 10 designers. If you have to eliminate 2 from each group, that decision is going to be decided based on who is perceived as the least valuable.
Being laid off is often not in your control – but in my experience there are sometimes things you can do to minimize your chances of being chosen. Mainly – find as many ways as you can to ad value, so that if 2 out of 10 people are chosen, you won’t be one of them.
I’ve been on both ends of this and my heartfelt sympathies go out to anyone affected.
I totally agree–it’s about the job, not the person. I lost my last job because I had to eliminate my OWN position…there’s no way I could have argued that we still needed an HR Director when we lost 2/3 of the employees and outsourced much of the HR functions to the parent company. You look at what the organization needs in terms of functions, and then you fill in the names afterward.
I also agree, though, that exercises like these do give the organization an opportunity to reduce its population of weenies and drama-magnets, especially in jobs where there are multiple incumbants.
@Laurie that’s absolutely true! i agree. it’s just funny how many people don’t understand that. these decisions have got to be the toughest thing regardless…can’t imagine! i’ve been through major layoffs twice in three years and the HR folks are a mess by the time it’s over. very tough job!
Layoffs are a way to clean house while retaining the talent needed to get through to the other side. That being said, many of the folks who find themselves laid off actually self select through chronic negative behaviors. They are best known as being high maintenance with lower value added. Tolerated during the good times, perhaps enabled through excessive good-hearted benefit of the doubt.
@Amanda Word. You’re right on both.
@Jason Would that be your friend Milton Friedman?
@Louise That’s a good PART II to this post. Thank you.
@Kerry Oh I hate weenies.
@Beer Thanks, you know, HR people are not very well-balanced in the first place. It’s weird that they’re asked to manage all this chaos when many of them are barely managing the chaos in their own lives.
@RSM I dunno if I agree with you about the “many” part. Otherwise, yes. This does happen.
Laurie
Concur, ‘many’ is an inappropriate broad qualifier.
One of my rules to avoid layoffs is “Work like every day is your first day on the job.”
So why am I typing this right now while on the job?