OT Small office lay-offs wwyd?

[rockundergirl]

Mindset
You work for a small office ( 13 people ) the company is having trouble. A large client was lost. Its projected that revenue wont be back to normal for a few months. And of course there is a small chance the company wont survive , although that is unlikely.



as this person, which scenario would make you feel you are being treated fairly

a) company wide email is sent out , explaining that the company is having a low from an unforeseen event. (large client leaving). The email asks for anyone who can to cut back as many hours as possible so the team can stay in place and come back to full time hours when the situation gets better.

b) the company moves forward without suggesting this. Management crosses fingers and hopes the situation gets better before layoffs are needed. This is unlikely to happen fast enough. It is projected that this method will end up with at least 2 or 3 people laid off. Management would choose who would be let go.


So which would you rather see happen ?

 

[mrsklamc]

Well I would prefer #1...are there people in this hypothetical scenario that might be willing to cut back?

 

[js]

13 people is small enough for a company meeting in person.
Perhaps furlows could be thrown out as a possibility with the understanding if there is not 100% for furlows, then some may be laid off.

 

[beavismom]

I would attempt option 1 first and then move to option 2 if needed. You never know, with summer coming up there may be some employees who would prefer to have some time of with their families.

 

[dizluvah]

my husband's company imposed a 10% pay cut across the board - until they recovered from their troubles. While it did suck, and lasted almost a year before full salaries were re-instated - it is a better alternative IMHO than layoffs.

The problem with scenario #1 is what if no one volunteers to cut back? Then they are right back where they started with hurt feelings all around - in a financial crisis business can't rely on volunteers to cut back hours - that isn't a reliable method of cost cutting and who is say who can "afford" to cut back - most coworkers don't know someone's personal financial business.

 

[pixiewings71]

DBF's company imposed a 10% pay cut as well, they did recover and they got the 10% back but they have had no raises in about 5 years now.

I work for a company that is nationwide, however our branch has 5 employees, we just lost our biggest client (for our branch only, the company has other huge clients) and we were worried they would close us down. Instead we are being downsized, we will be laying off 1 employee (who has already basically figured it out) and we will have 4 employees, we may have 1 more who leaves (he is a temp and is planning to see if he can find anything through his agency).

Personally, I would start with scenario #1 and then if necessary go to scenario #2. Good luck!!

 

[starry_solo]

I work for a large company and they started out with voluntary furloughs. Not too many people signed up for that. 4 months later, mandatory furloughs cutting 10% of our salary for a year AND no cost of living increases/raises. We got that back one year later (full time hours) but still no raises for 4 years.

 

[Darcy03231]

This happened at the small company I worked for (there were 9 of us including the owner, his wife and his son). He cut all of the employees back to four days a week.

I found a new job within a week and he didn't hire anyone to replace me, just parceled my work out to the remaining employees. All of the others stayed. 2.5 years later they're all still working four days a week.

I think if everyone is to stay employed, everyone needs to take a cut in hours, although some people may do what I did and find something else.

 

[LilyWDW]

You can not ask for volunteers. It really needs to be all or none take some sort of pay or hour cut. You simply can not count on enough people offering to take the shortened hours. If that happens, then what do you do?

 

[clh2]

The company my DH works for did a version of this a couple of years ago. The had two different attempts - the first was every person had a mandatory week off every 5 weeks. This was fine - because then the employees were able to apply for unemployment during the week they were not working.

Then - the powers that be decided this wasn't working - so then for about 3 months, they went to 4-day weeks.

After 6 months of that - they went to back to full time.

To the OP - when there needs to be a reduction in the payrool - it is not up to the employees on how to make ends meet - it really should be up to the bosses.

(Now - FWIW - I would love to take an unpaid week or two off work this summer!)

 

[Leigha]

I think that offering a choice to them is giving them control of what is eventually your decision. They likely know there is trouble, right? You could even state at the time what Plan B is whatever you decide that is. If someone does decide the outlook is too risky for them and they get another job, problem solved there too, right? To me it tells them that you're trying to make it work, and trying to be fair. Best of luck!!

 

[Princesca]

As an employee i would prefer 1 but the business runs the risk of permanently losing people who get scared and jump ship.....

 

[njmomtoone]

Mindset
You work for a small office ( 13 people ) the company is having trouble. A large client was lost. Its projected that revenue wont be back to normal for a few months. And of course there is a small chance the company wont survive , although that is unlikely.



as this person, which scenario would make you feel you are being treated fairly

a) company wide email is sent out , explaining that the company is having a low from an unforeseen event. (large client leaving). The email asks for anyone who can to cut back as many hours as possible so the team can stay in place and come back to full time hours when the situation gets better.

b) the company moves forward without suggesting this. Management crosses fingers and hopes the situation gets better before layoffs are needed. This is unlikely to happen fast enough. It is projected that this method will end up with at least 2 or 3 people laid off. Management would choose who would be let go.


So which would you rather see happen ?

I work in a small office (under 20) and this just happened to us in March. We all get paid hourly and were were toldto cut one hour per day - this was from managers down. It stinks, but better then lay offs.

 

[branv]

I think the company would be setting itself up for failure and/or bad feelings if they did a voluntary reduction in hours. Instead of layoffs, do an across the board pay cut. If this is not enough, or the company is unwilling to mess with salary rates, reduce hours for every hourly person the same amount and require any salaried workers to take a week or two of unpaid vacation. And, since it is a small office, the owner would be wise to show he or she is taking a hit in some way as well or they will deal with bad morale and loss of good employees.

That being said, when things are back to normal, a smart move would be to reward those those employees who stayed, even if in a small way. When DH's company did a mandatory pay cut for a year, when they reinstated it, they gave everyone a small bonus. I realize something like that may not be possible, but a sign of appreciation such as a party or an extra day of paid vacation goes a long way in helping employee morale.

 

[cluvsdisney]

Mindset
You work for a small office ( 13 people ) the company is having trouble. A large client was lost. Its projected that revenue wont be back to normal for a few months. And of course there is a small chance the company wont survive , although that is unlikely.



as this person, which scenario would make you feel you are being treated fairly

a) company wide email is sent out , explaining that the company is having a low from an unforeseen event. (large client leaving). The email asks for anyone who can to cut back as many hours as possible so the team can stay in place and come back to full time hours when the situation gets better.

b) the company moves forward without suggesting this. Management crosses fingers and hopes the situation gets better before layoffs are needed. This is unlikely to happen fast enough. It is projected that this method will end up with at least 2 or 3 people laid off. Management would choose who would be let go.


So which would you rather see happen ?

I would prefer A except that the company should not ask for volunteers. They should just say this is the way it's going to be.