How to do lay-offs right

 

How to do lay-offs right

I Lead in.

A.   Take 2 minutes to think about the situations when people lose their jobs. What reasons might lead to such situations?

B.   Compare your lists of reasons with other students. What similarities and differences do you have?

C.    What problems might companies have after they lose employees?

D.   What are the differences between the situations when employees choose to leave the company or are fired?  

E.    How do you think the companies can effectively deal with letting employees go?

 

II Match the words to their definitions. Use four words in your sentences.

1.	lay-off	A.	below the usual level
2.	pink slip	B.	the rate   at which people leave and are replaced
3.	to eliminate	C.	all the people who work for a company or organization
4.	workforce	D.	to make a company or an organization smaller by reducing the number of jobs in it
5.	to unveil	E.	done willingly, without being forced or paid to do it
6.	dealmaking	F.	to try to deal with a difficult problem
7.	to endure	G.	the activity of making business agreements or arrangements
8.	consequence	H.	a notice from an employer that one is being fired or laid off
9.	survivors’ guilt	I.	an act of ending a worker's job especially when the worker has done nothing wrong, for example because of economic conditions
10.	to grapple with something	J.	to inform people about something
11.	practicality	K.	to get rid of something not wanted
12.	depressed	L.	the effect or result  of something
13.	to downsize	M.	an interruption in the normal process
14.	voluntary	N.	to suffer something difficult, painful, or unpleasant
15.	turnover	O.	the aspect of a situation that involves the experience of something rather than theories or ideas
16.	disruption	P.	remorse or guilt for having survived a catastrophic event when others did not or for not suffering the ills that others had to endure

III Read the text and fill in the gaps with the words from the list. Use all the words.

 

survivors’ guilt; money; Twitter; associated; losses; jobs; industries; workforce; piling up; colleagues; replacing; property firms; productivity

 

It’s not just 1) _____. The pink slips are 2) _____ at some of the biggest names in tech. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, is eliminating more than 11,000 roles, around 13% of the social-media company’s 3) _____  . On November 22nd HP announced up to 6,000 job 4) _____ , which would be around 10% of the IT firm’s staff. Amazon’s boss, Andy Jassy, has warned of more cuts next year, on top of those already unveiled in the retailer’s devices and books businesses. Jobs are disappearing in other 5) _____ , too. Investment banks have started paring staff in anticipation of a slowdown in dealmaking. 6) _____ are laying people off as housing markets cool.

The people who suffer most from lay-offs are those who lose their 7) _____. But the 8) _____ who are left behind also endure lasting consequences; and for managers, this group is the one that determines success. Some suffer a form of 9) _____    , asking themselves why they kept their jobs and colleagues did not. Others must grapple with the practicalities of 10) _____departed workers and with the stress of heightened job insecurity: if the axe has fallen once, it may do so again.

The results can be depressed morale, lower 11) _____and unexpected costs. Research conducted in 2008 by two academics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that, for an average company, downsizing the workforce by 1% was 12) _____with a 31% increase in voluntary turnover rates. That means more disruption as well as additional 13) _____spent on filling open positions.

 

IV Comprehension check. Mark the sentences as True (T) or False (F). Correct the false statements.

 

1.    Many tech companies are currently laying off their staff.

2.    Now jobs losses only affect tech and retails companies.  

3.    Investment banks have started preparing to hire more staff in anticipation of a boom in dealmaking.  

4.    Property firms are laying people off  as housing markets cool.  

5.    People who lose their jobs are the ones who suffer most from lay-offs.  

6.    People who kept their jobs also feel consequences of lay-offs.  

7.    The way managers treat the people they want to lay off determines the success of the company.  

8.    When employees are laid off, they suffer from survivor’s guilt.  

9.    Some colleagues who kept their jobs face the challenge of replacing departed workers.  

10.Some colleagues who kept their jobs are stressed because of heightened job insecurity.  

11.Managers who have to lay staff off suffer from depressed morale and lower productivity.  

12.There are studies that point to the link between downsizing the workforce and increase in employee job satisfaction and company profits.  

 

 V Match the words to their definitions. Use four words in your sentences.

1.      1.	imperative	A.	the number of people employed by a company
2.	fair	B.	extremely  likely to  happen
3.	capacious	C.	to increase suddenly
4.	wrinkle	D.	a big increase
5.	eligibility	E.	reasons that are the basis for a particular set of actions
6.	executive compensation	F.	treating a group of people equally
7.	rationale	G.	something that is extremely important
8.	sputtering	H.	to produce
9.	stacked-ranking system	I.	a mixture of fixed salary, variable performance-based bonuses and benefits specifically created for members of executive management teams
10.	merit-based	J.	bad things that happen after a particular event
11.	to quit	K.	a small problem
12.	headcount	L.	operating slowly and unevenly, unstable
13.	to yield	M.	to leave a job
14.	leap	N.	suitability to be allowed to do something
15.	to spike	O.	an employee evaluation method that  measures employee performance against that of the entire workforce
16.	bound to	P.	able to include a lot of different things
17.	fallout	Q.	based on  skill and ability

VI Look through the text. Six sentences and sentence fragments have been removed. Read the text and choose from the sentence fragments (A-H) the one which fits each gap (1-6). There are  sentence fragments that you do not need to use.

  

A.    if the employees who are left behind still trust their bosses to get the big things right

B.    whose eligibility to remain in America is now in doubt

C.   the news comes as companies from across the technological spectrum have announced redundancies in recent months

D.   that workers will also be paid for all remaining unused time off and receive stock-based compensation

E.    the third area of focus is workload

F.    fairness also means sharing the rationale for why individual people have gone

G.   but in theory at least

H.   it matters that lay-off do not become regular events

 

To keep survivors motivated, managers need to get three things right. The first imperative is to appear fair. This is a capacious concept. Fairness involves treating departing colleagues well: one particular wrinkle with the current tech lay-offs is that they affect lots of immigrant workers, 1) _______________. It means showing sensitivity about executive compensation.

2) _______________, whether because they sat in sputtering businesses or because their own performance was questionable. “Stacked-ranking” systems, in which employees are forced into a ranking of highest to lowest performers, are increasingly out of favour. 3) _______________, they do provide a merit-based measure for decisions on where to make cuts. According to The Information, a news site, Google is going to increase the proportion of employees it identifies as low performers.

If decision-making about who is laid off appears capricious, then managers will also fail to achieve their second goal: to assure survivors that they don’t need to start looking for a new role, too. 4) _______________. Research conducted at a large manufacturer in 2003 found that workers who had been exposed to repeated rounds of cuts felt less secure in their jobs and had greater intention to quit.

5) _______________. Cutting headcount and asking the survivors to do more might seem like a marvellous idea in head office. Some bosses say so outright: Elon Musk is open about his belief in long hours by small teams. But it is a risky approach, as likely to reduce job satisfaction as yield leaps in productivity. Downsizing has a greater chance of succeeding if the burden on remaining employees does not spike.

None of this is easy territory. Lay-offs are bound to leave scars. But managing the fallout is simpler 6) _______________. Many of the memos being fired off by tech leaders contain apologetic admissions that they expanded their workforces too fast as a result of the pandemic. The honesty is necessary but it can plant another doubt in survivors’ minds: if they can foul up once, why not again?

  

VII Read the text in the previous task and answer the questions.

 

1.    What do managers have to consider to keep the survivors motivated? What are the three imperatives to take into account?  

2.    What fairness concerns are associated with current lay-offs in tech companies in America?  

3.    What rationale for why individual people have gone does the text discuss?  

4.    What are “stacked-ranking” systems like? Are they popular with the companies?  

5.    Might “stacked-ranking” systems have any benefits for the companies?  

6.    Do all the companies fire only the low performing employees? What examples does the text give?  

7.    What happens if lay-offs become regular events?   

8.    What is the link between lay-offs and workload?  

9.    What is Elon Musk’s approach to employee workload? What are the possible drawbacks of such an approach?   

10.Under what circumstances does downsizing have a greater chance of succeeding?  

11.What makes managing the consequences of lay-offs easier? 

12.What reasons for lay-offs did many tech companies give in their memos

13.          Why being honest about the reasons for lay-offs might not always be beneficial for the companies? How might employees feel?    

VIII Match the words from two columns to make collocations used in the text. Use four collocations in your sentences.

 

 

1.      1.	pink	A.	worker
2.	to pile	B.	jobs
3.	slowdown	C.	morale
4.	property	D.	compensation
5.	housing	E.	hours
6.	to lose	F.	business
7.	to be left	G.	admission
8.	to endure	H.	in productivity
9.	survivors’	I.	system
10.	to plant	J.	satisfaction
11.	to grapple	K.	to lowest performer
12.	job	L.	measure
13.	depressed	M.	guilt
14.	unexpected	N.	behind
15.	voluntary	O.	slip
16.	immigrant	P.	firm
17.	executive	Q.	doubt
18.	sputtering	R.	in dealmaking
19.	stacked-ranking	S.	insecurity
20.	ranking of highest	T.	up
21.	merit-based	U.	lasting consequences
22.	head	V.	market
23.	long	W.	with the practicalities
24.	reduce job	X.	turnover
25.	leap	Y.	office
26.	apologetic	Z.	cost

 

IX Vocabulary focus. Follow the link below.  Study the words and word combinations using flashcards, check your understanding. Test your knowledge. Play matching vocabulary game (match words to their definitions to make cards disappear) .

  

X OVER TO YOU. Conduct a short online research. Discuss the questions with other students.

A)  What industry is currently laying off employees in your country?

B)   What are the causes of lay-offs in your country?  

C)   What steps can managers take to ensure the downsized companies still operate effectively?