Workvivo Expert in Residence Gillian French Reveals Everything You Want to Know About Layoffs

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Gillian French is the expert in residence, employee experience at Workvivo. Workvivo is an employee communication platform designed to help companies reach, engage and connect with their employees. It has been described as an intranet, employee app and social media-like experience.

How should companies approach hiring and staffing during a recession?

… We need to think differently about how we handle this crisis. People have been through a lot, and I think people are going to be scared.

I think some leadership teams may think this is a great opportunity to get everybody back into the office, maybe create this atmosphere of fear… [to] get things back to the way they used to be [but] I think this is a real opportunity for organizations to do the right thing and try and go back to how we behaved when the pandemic started.

When the pandemic started, there was a great sense of collective community, looking out for each other and figuring out ways to preserve jobs… I think we need to apply those same principles.

What companies get wrong about layoffs

I think some companies will jump the gun and say, let’s lay off people. Let’s do the normal things that we do: Cut the bottom 10%. But, I really think people are looking on and observing [what companies do]. I think organizations will do serious damage to their reputation and their existing culture if they do this.

I think there are lots of different things that we could do, like we did during COVID-19, as in, adjust people’s salaries, maybe adjust people’s days. I talked to lots of people [who] are looking for two- and three-day [workweeks] and can’t get it currently in their organizations. Like that’s a great opportunity to sort of work with the people in your organization, give them what they need [with] flexibility, but still be able to maintain the organizational knowledge and maintain the morale within the organization and their existing culture.

… Organizations need to think differently and not just go for the nuclear button, which is [to] lay everyone off, create the sense of fear, and think that’s just going to cut it this time around because I don’t think it is going to cut it for people and employees.

How do companies decide who to lay off?

Every organization takes its own strategy, so in some organizations… they probably just say the last in [is] first out. Hiring freeze, maybe salary cuts, they’ll have a multitude of strategies that they’re looking at, but they might just take a very brash view and say, last in, first out.

In a way, that’s tough, but at the same time, they are probably trying to preserve their longer-serving employees, and they have loyalty to them.

… Most businesses probably take that strategy as their first port of call: last in, first out… If that’s not deep enough, then they’ll start looking at it in the sense of what components of their [business] strategy are being affected [by the downturn].

Who decides to start layoffs?

… Generally, it’s the executive team, [during] one of their monthly meetings or the CFO and the CEO call a meeting and say the numbers are not where they are… If they start seeing that they’re falling off, they need to come up with a plan because the board will be on the phone very, very shortly.

You can imagine them in the office trying to put some PowerPoint together; they’re all shouting at each other, trying to put stuff in to say what they’re going to do—all the while, the chaos is ensuing.

Why rescinding a job offer is one of the worst things a company can do

As a CPO, I just couldn’t sleep at night… It’s not the right thing to do…

[You’re] setting the tone that you don’t follow through on your word… I definitely would not recommend putting out a job offer to someone, then having second thoughts, and then say[ing] sorry, we’re not taking you on… especially for some large organizations where the person’s salary would mean very, very little. It’s not going to be a game changer [for] the business.

What can companies do to avoid layoffs?

If we’re struggling, I think salary adjustments—asking people to maybe take a 10% reduction in their salary… senior executives taking maybe 20%, more junior people 5%—can make sure… you’re trying to just maintain costs. I’ve seen employees be very happy with that because they’re holding onto their employment, their service, and also their colleagues are all in it together. And it’s fair because it’s tiered based on salary.

What the best is [an] all-hands [meeting] every week. Keep the people informed. Ask the employees [if] there [is] anything else that [we] can do, [like] working with suppliers [or] asking for different payment terms to maybe get over periods of times where cash might be tight.

… If we did it this way, we could save more money; everyone gets involved, and it’s collective. Everybody wants the same outcome, which is [for] the business to be sustainable and to keep the jobs. It’s a much better way of doing business…

… It can’t be just the same old method over and over again; let’s just chop the bottom 20%… It’s old-fashioned, it’s outdated, and it will come back to bite you when the market takes off again.

Why do some companies insist on a hybrid or completely in-office work schedule?

I think some short-sighted leaders will demand it. I think transactional, authoritarian-style organizations and leaders will… think this is a great opportunity now to say, haha, back into the office.

If you’re a people-centric organization, you will work with your people to try and come up with something that works for the organization.

Organizations are made up of people, and you have to have your people on [your] side… Not giving people a choice in the workplace in this day and age [is] quite old-fashioned. I think people are way too educated to accept those types of terms now.

Could a four-day workweek prevent layoffs?

I think you could actually change the four-day week, leave salaries as they are for a year or 18 months… and then we’re just kind of leveling out salaries for a year or two… because you’re getting four days for the same salary.

What it’s like to be an HR professional

HR [professionals] are afraid to give too much feedback. They’re afraid to say anything in case they will get sued or they say something… a person doesn’t like. They use all the paperwork and all the interviews to back up that they [have] competency frameworks, they have these multiple interviews, so that it’s a collective decision and [not] just one person’s decision.

It’s about fear. It’s fear that if they make the decision, or if they’ve done something incorrectly, the company may get sued…

All that really happens then is people don’t feel human… People become disillusioned and become worn out with the administration of everything, and they then start questioning: “Good God, why did I go into this? I went into HR because I love people, and I love meeting people. And now I feel the whole essence of why I went into it is gone. I’m an administrator.”