‘Zoom firing’: Are virtual layoffs the future?

“With people working from all over, I don’t see how a meeting can’t be set up to follow an email about the termination and [give] people the opportunity to respond, “says Woodley. In other words, it’s crucial to follow a group announcement by senior management with individual conversations with affected employees to answer questions and talk about next steps.

“Bringing groups of people onto a call to experience something that is so jarring is not good form,” says Taylor. While he believes it’s OK to bring an organization together to announce redundancies or restructuring, it’s crucial to “then have individualized conversations, even remotely, with the impacted employees so that people can experience, respond to [and] digest a separation discussion one-on-one “.

These personalized conversations can be especially important in a depersonalized setting like hybrid or remote work, where workers may spend all day alone in their home office. And even if the numbers of affected employees are very high, meaning HR representatives cannot take all meetings, it’s crucial that direct supervisors make themselves available. “We’ve got to train our managers to be more empathetic and compassionate in the process… especially if you’re doing it remotely,” says Taylor.

Companies can also try to soften the blow by helping workers identify potential new opportunities. Employers can say, “‘Companies A, B, C and D in the area are looking for talent, and we can make that intro for you,'” says Taylor. Not only does it help the terminated employees, it’s also good business for the company – it shows prospective hires and those who survived the layoffs that the company cares about its people, potentially alleviating the moral hit layoffs can bring.

Getting things wrong can leave companies with questions to answer. Better.com CEO Vishal Garg subsequently apologized for the way he had “blundered the execution” of the layoffs. He took a brief hiatus from the company, which has since laid off more people, reportedly again with some issues. Carvana told CBS MoneyWatch it had “as many conversations as we could in person [about the layoffs]and where in-person was not possible, we spoke to our team members over Zoom. “Klarna’s CEO defended his handling of the layoffs, reportedly suggesting 48 hours was an” acceptable “time for employees to wait for bad news.

Given remote and hybrid work aren’t going anywhere, it seems likely that virtual layoffs will become a normalized part of our working lives. Working from home, says Taylor, has altered every stage of having a job – including the end.

Yet, as recent cases have shown, companies will need to develop processes to conduct redundancies in a way that workers feel is humane. “The Better.com example was a good warning to other firms, and so I expect that most will try to use a little more common sense,” says Chatman. Workers shouldn’t get too comfy, though: “there are always outliers,” she adds.

But, as with many things, the way companies will proceed comes from management and their priorities. “Hiring, training and working with people is always personal – we never have mass hirings,” says Bloom. “Firing and layoffs should be the same.”

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