The Long Goodbye: Why Laid-Off Employees Are Still on the Job

Chris Pinner, a 42-year-old technical writer in Cleveland, knows his last day on the job is Dec. 29. The software company where he works told him so back in April.

At first, Pinner was puzzled by the supersize notice that his job would be eliminated. But the advance warning has given him more time to look for a new position, which Pinner said he appreciates. He is still in job-search mode as his end date draws closer.

Pinner and many other workers facing termination are experiencing a different kind of corporate cutting—layoffs with a long runway that can take weeks or months to finally come to pass. Wells Fargo and Disney are among large employers that have done some long goodbyes instead of more-traditional, abrupt ones, in which laid-off workers learn they are cut and leave on the same day, often escorted out by security.

The old way protected companies from security problems or lost clients as laid-off workers walked out the door, and workers had little recourse. Now employers are trying to appear transparent and compassionate when cutting, several executives and leadership consultants said.

“Companies can’t lay people off on the quiet anymore,” said Sarah Rodehorst, chief executive of Onwards HR, a software platform that helps companies with legal compliance during employee terminations. “Whatever they do is much more under a microscope. They have to hold themselves to a higher standard.”

Avoiding a backlash

Demand for white-collar workers has taken a big hit this year, as companies acknowledge they over hired during the pandemic and job openings dry up. The tightening job market means employers are piling on layers of new requirements and lengthy, additional rounds of interviews for a few coveted jobs, dragging out the hiring process as they grow more selective about whom they bring on.

Layoffs that are seen as insensitively done can spark backlash on social media, with laid-off employees venting online and circulating internal details, said George Penn, a managing vice president at Gartner who advises companies on staff restructuring.

“Layoffs became not only a legal but a reputational nightmare for some organizations,” he said.

Federal law requires employers of a certain size to give 60 days’ notice to workers when conducting big layoffs. Some companies have gotten around advance warning by paying terminated workers a lump sum to cover that period.

Some affected employees said they would still receive severance pay after their long layoff notice periods, though it would be reduced if they left before their designated end dates.

In the Houston area, James Ridgway Jr., 40, is working at Huntsman, a chemical company, after learning in August that he would lose his job at the end of the year. The father of two children with another on the way said the news was initially an “existential gut punch.” He said the long lead time has given him more time to network and tighten family finances.

“It’s not a great place to be in, but I appreciate that I do have that runway,” said Ridgway, adding that the notice is helping him as he hands off responsibilities to co-workers.

Ridgway, a communications manager, is still looking for another full-time job. Because his colleagues know he is job-hunting, ducking out for interviews is less awkward than feigning doctors’ appointments, he said.

Wade Rogers, Huntsman’s senior vice president of global human resources, said giving laid-off employees months of notice shows remaining and prospective workers that the company treats its people well. That approach, he said, could help the company recruit and retain good hires in the future.

“How we handle ourselves and how we handle our relationships with our associates matters,” he said.

‘Take every advantage’

Not all workers want to stick around after a layoff. A Wells Fargo employee said staying motivated after being terminated was tough. She was told months ago that her job would be eliminated. No precise date was given, making it hard to plan her job search.

“Every day, you go in, and you’re like, is it going to be today?” she said.

Wells Fargo said it periodically needs to adjust its staffing levels according to business needs. During layoffs, “We always treat our employees respectfully, including giving them reasonable time to prepare,” the bank said.

At Disney, a former corporate employee who was given several months’ notice this past spring said she was annoyed that she was expected to keep doing her job even though it was ending, until her manager said she could stay home and stop working. Two other Disney employees said they weren’t asked to work during their advance-notice period; they used the time to consider next career steps.

Earlier this year, a laid-off Disney marketing executive was given two months’ notice of his layoff. While he collected paychecks, he used the time to job-hunt and made use of his employee benefits. He took his children to Disneyland free several times.

“I am going to take every advantage of this as possible,” the former executive recalled thinking.

Disney declined to comment.

Some companies simply can’t give employees much warning, but some of those are trying to soften the blow.

“If you’re dealing in an environment where you have confidential patents or access to business plans, you just want to protect your company assets,” said Tashia Mallette, a longtime human-resources executive who conducted layoffs last year at Therabody, a wellness-technology company.

Mallette said that workers were notified on the day they had to leave but that Therabody encouraged managers to check on them and created an alumni Slack channel so people didn’t feel abruptly cut off. Mallette herself has left the company.

Companies don’t want workers to feel burned during a layoff. If anything, they want workers to feel that they would rejoin the company if given the chance.

Jennifer Bender managed layoffs of hundreds of people during her years at Change Healthcare, where until this past spring she was a senior vice president of human resources. The company had to trim staff during acquisitions and project and client fluctuations, and it also had to fill hundreds of openings a month, she said.

The company decided to tell people two to four weeks ahead of their layoff dates, she said. It felt more compassionate to workers, and it also made it easier to redeploy some people into other roles the company needed to fill, which was a benefit to the company and employees who were interested in staying on.

While longer notice periods involve risks, including security issues or unmotivated people who don’t want to work during that time, Bender said the company let employees know that performance issues could still result in corrective action, including termination for cause. That meant, she added, that it wasn’t much of an issue.

“It’s really a best practice at this point,” Bender said.

—Ben Eisen contributed to this article.

You and a friend have a can’t-miss idea for a new business. You’ve got a great name, and the logo is perfect.

It is time to ask each other some hard questions.

Talking up front about tough subjects like how you work, how you deal with stress and your expectations for the business can save lots of headaches later. “Most issues are neutral when you discuss them ahead of time,” says Jane Brodsky , who ran a barre-and-spin studio with a partner for 10 years in Washington, D.C. “But in the heat of the moment, issues become personal and larger than they need to be.”

Here are crucial questions that should be settled at the start to help make the partnership succeed.

How did your family communicate?

Maybe you were raised in a family that talked through disagreements to find solutions. But maybe your partner grew up in a house where the loudest voice won. That could be a problem when issues arise in the business: Experts say that when people are under stress, they often fall back on behaviours that were imprinted at home—and different styles could clash.

At Happy Being, a company that sells nutritionally enhanced teas and drink powders, the three co-founders discussed communication style before they started the business. “We discovered that one partner gets triggered if he feels no one is listening,” says co-founder Dutch Buckley . “It goes back to an early fear of not being heard.” (For his part, co-founder Josemaria Silvestrini says that early on he “definitely needed the validation of being recognised and being right.”)

So, the three work at making sure everyone has a say in meetings, and they made a rule that no one’s work is ever belittled. On the flip side, when someone on the team accomplishes something, someone else on the team draws attention to it.

What does success look like to you? And failure?

While these may seem obvious—like, the business either succeeds or fails—everyone’s definition is different, and they are surprisingly specific. Certainly, monetary goals or anything that can be enumerated will help partners envision each other’s goals. Is one looking to grow slowly with customers and suppliers in the community and get to better than break even after three years, while the other wants to be cash-flow positive in year one and scale quickly to sell the business to a larger entity after 10 years? There’s a lot of success and failure in between those two outcomes, depending on your perspective.

Silvestrini of Happy Being recommends hashing it out together on the whiteboard until everyone agrees on an explicit definition of success for the company. “Hopefully, it’s an easy 10-minute conversation,” he says. “Because if founders have different objectives, the boat is going nowhere.”

What does everyone bring to the table?

It is crucial to discuss what each partner is contributing to the partnership in terms of expertise, experience, network and money. Kathryn Zambetti , an executive coach specialising in founder relationships, recommends taking an honest strengths-and-weaknesses inventory of yourself and your partner and then discussing what you both bring to the table. The exercise will help delineate which responsibilities naturally suit each partner, and it will highlight areas that will require additional work or outsourcing.

The clearer the roles can be defined, the better. If you are opening a bakery, you and your partner shouldn’t both be good at just making bread. Someone needs to handle marketing, suppliers, leases and licensing, financials and hiring and managing employees.

Why are you doing this?

You and your partner need to be in complete alignment on your motivations. Does this venture need to support your family or merely add to your vacation fund? Are you doing it to prove your father or your high-school econ teacher wrong? Any answer other than unfailing commitment to the mission or the product is a red flag.

“Your north star has to be something bigger than money to succeed,” says Buckley. “People will go through things that test them, but if money is the only motive, that won’t be enough.”

What pushes your buttons?

Just like in a marriage, you want to know best how to support and protect your business partner. Understanding what puts each of you in a fight-or-flight mode can be key to getting the best out of each other.

Do you need to be consulted on all decisions, or just major ones? Do you need to be recognized as the leader and sit at the head of the table? Do you fear having to downsize your home if the business fails?

What does your workday look like?

Does a day at the office mean working 9 to 5? Can the work be done remotely and on your own time? If you work well at night and need rapid responses to questions, is it a problem having a partner whose phone goes on “do not disturb” every evening at 7? Having the conversation and understanding expectations is key.

When Buckley started Happy Being, the team learned that one of the partners got up very early. “I had to tell him, ‘We don’t want 6 a.m. calls.’ ”

Do you like taking gambles?

A penchant for lottery tickets, Las Vegas gambling or high-adrenaline activities like skydiving shows a potential partner’s tolerance for risk and whether that aligns with your own. There will be countless decisions early on in a business concerning risk, and the partners need to be on the same page.

So ask about it. You go into the venture planning and hoping for success, but how much money or time is your partner willing to lose if it doesn’t succeed? How much of their parents’ or in-laws’ money would they bet on the partnership?

Is the business more important than the friendship?

Many business partners start as friends. But would you each be willing to give priority to making the right decision for the business, even if it means possibly hurting the friendship? Would you each be capable of letting the other one go if it was better for the company? Most advisers recommend choosing a partner who has a common business goal and letting the friendship build from that, rather than trying to build a partnership on top of a strong friendship.

“Your business partner will be one of your most intense relationships, but it shouldn’t fulfill every role in your life,” says Amy Jurkowitz, entrepreneur and co-founder of branding adviser Bread Ventures. “You need to be compatible in how much energy you will both put into the business.”

If the partnership doesn’t work out, how will it end?

A co-founder relationship is a binding agreement with financial and emotional repercussions, just like a marriage. But starting a business has the added stress of having the company—the baby—arrive on day one. If there is a divorce, who gets custody?

The more specific you can be about potential breakups, the better. If you are both putting capital in at the start, would you expect to get that out if you exited? What if, several years in, one partner can’t continue to struggle without a regular paycheck and leaves—and the next year the company finally turns a profit or is bought by another company? Would the partner who left get a share of the money?

These discussions should help make it clear that the survival of the company—and not the partnership or the friendship—is the ultimate goal. Those who have been through a business breakup recommend involving a third party to help sort through these issues at the outset.