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Article from The Straits Times, 1st March 2003
Planning to lay off staff? Here's how to do it properly (Edited Version)
STAGE 1: PLANNING THE EXECUTION
SPEED is of essence once the decision to downsize has been made, as rumours of impending job cuts leak fast. So the execution date usually has to be brought forward.
Outplacement companies say top brass must agree on the official reason for retrenchment to ensure everyone sings the same tune.
The termination packages are then hammered out together with the unions and a detailed D-Day timetable is worked out.
In what is often a half-day workshop, line managers are coached on how to separate their personal feelings for the colleagues they have to fire and their professional duty as a manager.
They practise delivering the bad news from a script and role-play among themselves to prepare for responses, which can range from verbal abuse and sobbing to dead silence.
Says Mr Paul Heng of NeXT Career Consulting: 'They are taught not to display their emotions and not to beat around the bush.
'Just make it brief and to the point such that the employee, whose mind will be busy extrapolating the consequences, understands the key messages: one, that today is his last day, and two, which room he has to collect his cheque from.'
STAGE 2: DAY OF RECKONING
ON D-Day itself, the office will resemble the scene outside a hospital operating room. There will be gaunt faces, red-rimmed eyes and huddles of whispering employees in the corridors.
First thing in the morning, the company's top brass should make a company-wide announcement on the reasons and extent of the layoffs.
Next, managers will inform the affected employees individually and within the privacy of a room.
The affected employee will be directed to the human resource department to receive his severance package and sort out the return of company property, such as laptops.
After that, he is escorted next door to a counselling room where an outplacement consultant will be waiting, usually with tissue paper and bottled drinking water, for him to ventilate his feelings.
Some employees are very quiet and do not show any emotion. Those that say nothing are often the ones that need the most support. Their silence can hide denial or depression that can lead to disastrous outcomes.
Others are bitter or angry but recover quite quickly and start to think about future opportunities. Some are actually happy because they have been thinking about leaving for some time and now have severance pay, outplacement support and time to think about what to do next in their career.
To be safe, doctors and security guards are often on standby in case the bad news provokes seizures or violence.
Most outplacement consultants here, however, have not seen anything more untoward than middle-aged senior executives breaking down and bawling like babies.
Mr Heng notes: 'Sometimes, their immediate concern is not finding another job. We once had to coach a British vice-president in his mid-40s, who was crying, on how to break the news to his wife.'
Later in the day, these employees are handed cardboard boxes to pack their personal effects and head home. The D-Day conveyer belt must be timed with military precision such that there is no queue or waiting around, giving time for upset employees to let off steam back at the office.
'It has to be a production line, yet with a personal touch. It's a science which has to be perfected to an art,' says Mr Heng.
Hardly anyone will be in the mood to work, so it is probably better to call the rest of the day off for everyone.
'It's like witnessing a death in the family. The feeling is uncomfortable. At the back of the minds of the survivors, who have just witnessed bloodshed, they are asking, 'Will it be my turn next?' ' he says.
The outplacement consultants themselves will find the day emotionally draining.
No matter how experienced you are, when you are informing someone that his rice bowl is broken, it's hard. Everyone involved has sleepless nights.
These are people you've lunched with, been to weddings with, whom you've shared the greater part of your lives with. No one can be so hardened by the process that they feel nothing.
STAGE 3: THE AFTERMATH
THE deed is done, but it is not yet business as usual.
The priority now is to take care of the survivors, as they are the ones whom you are counting on to help the business forge ahead.
Bosses should cancel all overseas travel and stick around to answer any nagging questions. But they should resist the temptation to promise things they cannot honour, such as 'that was the first and the last retrenchment exercise'.
Meanwhile, for those outplaced, the healing begins and they begin to focus on the future.
They attend workshops on self-discovery, Internet strategies and communication skills, while consultants help them work through the various stages of emotional grief.
They also get to use the outplacement office's facilities and directories to polish their resume and hunt down new job leads.
As such, most outplacement candidates get back onto the workforce saddle faster. Firms here say the overall success rate of re-employment is more than 95 per cent.
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