BigRobSA said:

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ABATTBQ87 said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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Keeps the pressure off the supervisors who usually didn't make the decision anyways, and greatly reduces the odds of a workplace incident. It's impersonal but some people don't deal with it maturely and it is difficult to predict who that might be.

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I've had to terminate people, face-to-face in the presence of HR, and it was always a miserable experience.

People would cry, beg forgiveness, and then turn angry and threaten you.

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I have, too. Funnily, they didn't threaten me.

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But aren't you Andre The Giant?

Because the call would have gone so much better for them? The call with HR sitting there speaking the same talking points of the email while their boss is told to keep his lips shut.

Welcome to IT. If you're an individual contributor just keep solid skills and you will be fine. If you're a 20 year old 'business analyst' making 150k - well I hope you enjoyed the times.

txyaloo said:

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J. Walter Weatherman said:

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Why would anyone want to have a conversation at that point? I work for a small company and if we had to do layoffs we'd definitely have conversations with people but if I was one of 12K I don't understand the desire to talk to anyone. Decision has been made, take the severance and move on with your day.

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Because we're still people and not just numbers. RIFs suck, but managers should put on their big boy pants and have a professional conversation explaining what's happening and next steps

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When you are one of 150k employees you've already made the choice to be just a number. The email explaining the circumstances was enough for a layoff of that size. Anything else is a waste of time that can be spent on more productive things that help drive the bottom line.

Having to let go a hard working employee in person is the worst part about being a people leader.

Everything else pales in comparison.

Old hotness

When I got laid off a few years ago, I thanked them for the opportunity to be part of the team, thanked them for the generous severance package, gave them my personal cell phone number and told them if they had any questions regarding the projects I was managing, they could call and I would help as much as I could.

They have asked me to come back to work for them twice since I was laid off in 2016!

New Busted

"I need a second to process this information"

!!!!!!!!!!

I think Google even said the layoffs would be announced ahead of time. That makes the email more acceptable and increases the speed/transparency of it....especially if entire teams (including the manager) are laid off.

I was laid off a couple of years ago. A generous severance package would've actually made me happy and allow me to relax into the job search. So they nailed the most important thing, I guess.

Boo hoo. Mass layoffs shouldn't shock you in this day and age. Take a day for yourself and get going on the job hunt. You are not special, it happens to many of us.

HoustonAg2106 said:

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All I keep seeing is people who got laid off saying how awful it is that they were notified by an email and not a personal conversation.

I literally don't understand how you can layoff 12,000 people by having one on one conversations with each person, what else can you do?

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Google HR- "Mr Jones you need to come in we need to talk".

Mr Jones- "But I work from home".



Google HR- "Mr Jones you need to come in we need to talk".

Mr Jones- "But I work from home".



Google HR- "Mr Jones you need to come in we need to talk".

Mr Jones- "But I work from home".



Google HR- "Mr Jones you need to come in we need to talk".

Mr Jones- "But I work from home".



Google HR- "Mr Jones you need to come in we need to talk".

Mr Jones- "But I work from home"..............

Only been through one mass layoff event in my 30 year career (so far). They paged people to come down to HR one at a time. You knew what was happening once you got that page, but they had to inform people somehow.

Someone above than your direct manger delivered the news with a canned speech, then HR told you about the severance package. After that, you had your choice. Go back to your office and hug and cry with everyone, or come back later and clean your stuff out. They did have security there for people who acted up (and a couple did).

I'm saying this as someone who was not fired, but I think they handled it as well as they could. Layoffs are a reality in any large business, and they at least informed people privately. You then had your choice on how you wanted to act afterwards.

Still, that was a weird day. Of course no work got done. Eight of us went out to lunch. We didn't talk but just stared into space. By the end of the day, four of the eight were gone.

HR Manager: worked. You worked from home…when you had a job.

Would this be any better?

HoustonAg2106 said:

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aggielostinETX said:

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HoustonAg2106 said:

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All I keep seeing is people who got laid off saying how awful it is that they were notified by an email and not a personal conversation.

I literally don't understand how you can layoff 12,000 people by having one on one conversations with each person, what else can you do?

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In an era where we lack accountability, at a company with no spine or leadership, I guess we can't expect HR or managers to do the right thing and talk to some one?

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Again, how is HR supposed to make 12,000 personal calls? That's not realistic, it would take months

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Google isn't your normal company. They don't have 5 people in HR. They have more people in HR than most have total. I'd assume they have an HR team partnered with every business unit so you still have a POC and a "face" for HR. It's silly to think 1, or even 20, people would make 12,000 personal calls. I'd be shocked if google had less than 12,000 people, hell less than double that, in HR.

Most big companies have HR Business partners that are POC for specific business units/groups.

MaroonStain said:

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Tech is bloated

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Tech isn't bloated.

The economy is *****
The outlook is *****
And companies continued to hire like Trump was President.
This would be very different if he was President.

Quote:

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The economy is *****
The outlook is *****
And companies continued to hire like Trump was President.
This would be very different if he was President.

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Meanwhile....on January 23rd it is reported....
[url=https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/december-unemployment-rate-drops-in-texas-nearly-30000-jobs-added/][/url]

Quote:

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December unemployment rate drops in Texas, nearly 30,000 jobs added
The Texas seasonally adjusted unemployment rate declined for the first time in three months to 3.9% in December, the first month the rate fell below 4% since February 2020, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.

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This is the most job abundant "economy is *****" and "The outlook is *****" in US history.

deddog said:

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MaroonStain said:

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Tech is bloated

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Tech isn't bloated.

The economy is *****
The outlook is *****
And companies continued to hire like Trump was President.
This would be very different if he was President.

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Tech IS bloated. You can't tell me that tech isn't bloated when Twitter can keep a few hundred out of 8000 employees and not miss a beat.

TxTarpon said:

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Quote:

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The economy is *****
The outlook is *****
And companies continued to hire like Trump was President.
This would be very different if he was President.

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Meanwhile....on January 23rd it is reported....
[url=https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/december-unemployment-rate-drops-in-texas-nearly-30000-jobs-added/][/url]

Quote:

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December unemployment rate drops in Texas, nearly 30,000 jobs added
The Texas seasonally adjusted unemployment rate declined for the first time in three months to 3.9% in December, the first month the rate fell below 4% since February 2020, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.

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This is the most job abundant "economy is *****" and "The outlook is *****" in US history.

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Well, the outlook is and has been pretty bad. At least according to the S&P and investors... Funny that you say jobs are abundant when unemployment rate declined "for the first time in 3 months" in December lol

4% Texas unemployment. I did hear 3.9% on the radio.
The "I wanna work from home" plea would fall on deaf ears in an 8% unemployment labor market.

Aggies2009 said:

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deddog said:

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MaroonStain said:

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Tech is bloated

---

Tech isn't bloated.

The economy is *****
The outlook is *****
And companies continued to hire like Trump was President.
This would be very different if he was President.

---

Tech IS bloated. You can't tell me that tech isn't bloated when Twitter can keep a few hundred out of 8000 employees and not miss a beat.

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Twitter is an exception, don't you think?
Twitter was bloated because it was a democrat propaganda organization masquerading as a tech company.
Those ****ers didn't even pretend to work and It's not like that S/W is hard or particularly challenging.

Unlike (say) Microsoft, Facebook and Alphabet which have a lot of products and anticipated a lot of growth.

deddog said:

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Aggies2009 said:

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deddog said:

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MaroonStain said:

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Tech is bloated

---

Tech isn't bloated.

The economy is *****
The outlook is *****
And companies continued to hire like Trump was President.
This would be very different if he was President.

---

Tech IS bloated. You can't tell me that tech isn't bloated when Twitter can keep a few hundred out of 8000 employees and not miss a beat.

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Twitter is an exception, don't you think?
Twitter was bloated because it was a democrat propaganda organization masquerading as a tech company.
Those ****ers didn't even pretend to work and It's not like that S/W is hard or particularly challenging.

Unlike (say) Microsoft, Facebook and Alphabet which have a lot of products and anticipated a lot of growth.

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Twitter was undoubtedly an outlier, but I can see why more viable companies may want to trim staff 10%. We are staring down a recession that doesn't exist and isn't coming but is already here.

ABATTBQ87 said:

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MouthBQ98 said:

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Keeps the pressure off the supervisors who usually didn't make the decision anyways, and greatly reduces the odds of a workplace incident. It's impersonal but some people don't deal with it maturely and it is difficult to predict who that might be.

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I've had to terminate people, face-to-face in the presence of HR, and it was always a miserable experience.

People would cry, beg forgiveness, and then turn angry and threaten you.

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I had to fire my own uncle in 1983. One of the great blessings of my life is, even though it took almost 30 years, we are close family friends again.

HoustonAg2106 said:

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All I keep seeing is people who got laid off saying how awful it is that they were notified by an email and not a personal conversation.

I literally don't understand how you can layoff 12,000 people by having one on one conversations with each person, what else can you do?

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same group of people who refuse to come into the office most likely

12,000 1:1 conversations doesn't happen because of the logistics and people like to talk.

Not in the call itself - those are typically short 5-7 minutes. but in the package prep and in the 'don't get us sued' trainings.

it'd take 2000+ cumulative hours to have the conversations in person… 100x that many hours to train people (business rep + HR rep in each call because you don't do these solo) to try and prepare people to have the conversation as a decent human. And the more people you bring into the convo, the higher likelihood of leaks/etc.

Google did it well.. and all 12,000 got a minimum of 6 months pay + minimum of 4 months accelerated vesting.

https://blog.google/inside-google/message-ceo/january-update/

Severance is obviously huge. But, I was part of mass layoffs via email three years ago. Boss wouldn't even answer my call. Worst part was severance was ****, they cut our severance policy back significantly a few weeks before.

Fast forward a year, they called me to come back and I told them to pound sand. Even if the severance wasn't changed I would have told them to pound sand. I'm not going back to work for a manager who doesn't have the decency to at least call and talk to his employees. Sure, the company laid off 60% if it's employees, I understand the reason. My manager was over 6 people. 3 got let go. He can have 3 conversations.

Google employees can suck it with all their whining and crying on Linkedin. They all got 6 months - 1year severance + accelerated RSU vesting + 2022 bonus paid in full + 6 months of benefits. I heard a lot of Google employees are going to pocket around $500k in severance money.

I was laid off last week. The CEO called a last minute company Microsoft teams meeting, announced a large part of our company is being sold and many employees will be impacted. Then we all got a calendar invite where we were then told we were being laid off effective immediately. I got a 2 weeks severance + unused PTO payout. I didnt receive my 2022 bonus which would have been close to $10k, and my unvested RSU's (around $30k) are going to disappear.

I miss o&g severance packages. Last time I was laid off in o&g I got around $60k total and ended up starting a new job the following week! I thought that was a good severance until I saw Google's lol.

What sector do you work in? Because that severance is crap

Charpie said:

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What sector do you work in? Because that severance is crap

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I worked for a small medtech start up.

Yup, Google employees are entitled *******s imo. I have been laid off twice.

First time I got no notice, 3 weeks severance and a month of healthcare. My wife was 5 months pregnant.

The second time I got one month notice, 9 weeks of severance and 6 months of healthcare, I thought I was living like a king.

The best was I got a text from the owner / 'sorry - I'm done with this business - good luck.'

Big gulps huh?