You know, in case you ever need to do one again. NEVER STOP LEARNING, Y’ALL!
- Make a public statement three months earlier that you are not going to do any layoffs.
- Announce that you’re laying off 16% of your staff on an internal blog. Start cutting access before people have a chance to read it.
- Do not inform affected employees’ leads that their teammates are being laid off. Maybe they can catch up afterwards on LinkedIn or somewhere.
- Lay off entire teams that were performing well. Don’t give a reason why!
- Let laid off people know via email that their jobs have ended and then cut their access right away, even though your company rarely uses email. Maybe their friends will find out first and text them to check in, and they can figure it out that way.
- Cut off access while someone’s stepped away from their desk for lunch.
- Cut off access while someone’s in the middle of a conversation with their lead.
- Cut off access while someone’s IN THE MIDDLE OF A VIDEO CALL WITH A CLIENT.
- Create a comprehensive program for non-developer employees to build their skills and move into developer roles. Let them work as developers for a couple years. Then lay most of them off.
- Set up a way for employees to help out in understaffed areas by rotating to other divisions for a set period of time. Then lay them off while they’re on rotation, even though no employees from their home division were laid off.
- Offer impacted employees severance amounting to less than half of what you offered alleged “leakers, traitors, and dissenters” in an “alignment buyout” six months ago.
- Refuse to reimburse company expenses. Make up some administrative excuse.
- Thank them for their service! Wish them the best! But don’t negotiate the terms of their severance.
- Tell your remaining employees that this was the result of “feedback inflation” and that no other layoff are planned (wink wink!)