Can Layoffs Be "Humane?"

Just this week, Morgan Stanley announced it will reduce its workforce by 2% , Buzzfeed said it would cut headcount by 12% , and PepsiCo said it plans to cut “hundreds” of jobs . The same is true at Redfin (13% ), Lyft (13% ), Stripe (14% ), Snap (20% ), Opendoor (18% ), Meta (13% ), and Twitter (50% ). So many companies have initiated layoffs recently that tech and HR entrepreneurs launched trackers like TrueUp Tech and to Layoffs.fyi dedicated to monitoring the staff reductions across the tech sector.

Such begins this article on HBR, which then has this amazing paragraph:

I guarantee — guarantee — you the guy who thought that idea up still thinks it’s genius, to this day. Ah, I shoulda been in Forbes.

OK, so let’s get this out of the way first: you cannot “humanely” layoff someone. It’s impossible. Here is why: economically, most people have their home (if they own), their income, and maybe some potential inheritance or some stuff they could sell. Most people don’t have 10 million investments and deep diversification. When you remove income, you’re removing a lot. And it’s usually that you’re doing layoffs because “Well, we didn’t plan so well for future demand, oopsie.” It’s like, the company messed up and the person pays the price. Huh?

You can’t do that humanely. You can, however, be a human being and not an asshole as it’s happening. To wit:

At a company called Virtuoso back in the day, I was part of Wave II of some November 2015 — pre-Thanksgiving! — layoffs. I had been there since July 2014, so about 17 months. The first 12 months, even though I didn’t really produce that much and the job was a bit amorphous, I had a good relationship with my boss and my colleagues. Those last five it soured a bit. Lot of different stories there; I can spare you most of them. So, when I was on the block (and rightfully so, as my job didn’t truly need to exist) in Wave II, my boss was all too eager to get it popping. She laid me off while sipping Diet Coke through a straw the entire meeting. HR then perp walked me out. I went and got drunk at a place called Flying Saucer. Now, that all said, I did create a halfway-decent freelance career out of that, so, silver lining.

I got piped (laid off) from a place called Starr Conspiracy in May 2019, after which I drank at a golf tournament. Go figure. On that layoff, me and this dude Dave in Sales got laid off one week, then two weeks passed, then 12 people got laid off. Later I saw the CEO at something. He didn’t like me and told me Dave and I were “fired.” I said, “Naw, just Wave I layoffs, baby!” He didn’t like that. Semantics, but eh. On that one, my boss set a meeting for Friday AM with me at 10am on Tuesday. As soon as he set the meeting, he left for the day — then he worked from home on Wednesday and Thursday. I came in Friday morning thinking it was a work meeting. Nope. A layoff. He read from a sheet and asked for my laptop. I left without a perp walk.

Those are my only real two; I’ve resigned at some places, which is like me laying them off (my my how the tables have turned), but really only been laid off in those two scenarios. Neither was humane. Neither was violent, either — which is good!

There’s no way to be humane in these situations, but you can avoid being an asshole, and/or putting “the winners” in one room. So do that — don’t be an asshole. That’s a good first step.