Lay Off Help For Employers

Make Lay Off Painless For You and Your Employees

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Terminating An Employee For The Best

The act of terminating an employee can be stressful for a human resource person or a small business owner. If the employee has not changed after repeated warnings, both verbal and written, then it can final step for a particular employee’s reform.

You may be asking how terminating an employee can still be seen as part of that person’s job betterment. Simply put, a good business has its roots in the community, and by terminating an employee who does not show up on time or care to put forward enough energy for a job, and then you are doing the community a service. The terminated employee will likely be reflective (after a period of time) on why exactly they were let go. During that time, they will remember what it is you told them and hopefully make changes to correct their behavior.

Lay Off Tips and Advice

How to lay off and fire. Step-by-step. Includes letters and forms.

When Lay Off Is Necessary Who Do You Let Go?

Your company may need to lay off employees for various reasons. There may be a slow down of the general economy or your industry may be on the decline. Lay offs may also signal more serious problems at your company. There could be flaws in your business model, delays in production or reduced sales. You might have expected future business growth that did not occur. Before you can fix these problems, you must lay off employees to get back on solid financial ground. Whatever the reasons, most companies will find they need to conduct a lay off at some point.

The biggest issue most business owners and Human Resources managers face during a lay off is how to conduct one effectively. You want to be fair to all workers, both to those who will lose their jobs and those who will remain. At the same time, you need the business to continue to run with minimal interruptions. A lay off can throw a monkey wrench into your daily business operations. To prevent this from happening, you must systematically decide who to lay off and then effectively communicate this to all employees.

Who Do You Lay Off?

Many companies follow the rule of seniority when lay offs take place. Employees who have the most time with the company have less risk of being laid off than those you recently hired. If your workers form a union, the union may demand that you give preference to people with seniority. The thinking here is that senior employees have more job experience and more company training. Since the company has invested more time and money in these workers, it seems natural they should keep their jobs.

Instead of seniority, other companies look at their business operations. They find product or service areas that are losing money. If a company wants to refocus on its core business, it may want to drop a whole business segment. In these cases, the company gets rid of all jobs associated with these areas. The employees holding these positions are laid off.

Yet another way to reduce your workforce is to offer early retirement packages. Here the business assumes that some employees will retire soon. These workers will voluntarily leave their jobs if the severance package is high enough. Of course with a voluntary lay off, the company may not meet its lay off quotas.

Finally, you may use an employee rating system where all workers get regular feedback on their performance. If you have applied your system consistently across the workforce, you can use it to lay off a group of workers. For example, the manager can rate the employee from a 1 to a 5 where 1 is an excellent worker and 5 is someone who needs continuous coaching and retraining. In this case, you could lay off all employees with a rating of 4 or 5.

However you decide to lay off employees, you must do it consistently. Be aware that selecting an entire group is less risky than cherry picking who gets a pink slip. Conducting lay offs this way also minimizes negative effects for the remaining workers. The lay off will feel less personal to those employees losing their jobs, and it immediately gives security to those who remain. That said lay offs will still wreak emotional havoc on your workplace. The best way to get through them is quickly. Be up-front, take responsibility and allow your workers some time to grieve only then can you move forward to full business recovery.