Sr. Director? Managing director? SLT? ELT?
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C suite looks at finacial projections and long term strategy. They work with finance to decide what divisions to reduce to prepare for sale, or to shut down in order to free up cash, right-size / transfer to cheaper labor, make more attractive for sale (clean up for the potential buyers) etc...
Finanace does the human resouce spreadsheet work with HR. Then the numbers are crunched, then are given to the VP's and Directors to work with thier local HR people to decide who gets the axe. It's partially objective as those paid at the top of their bands or a bit above are looked at. Also, those are those who have ever had a PIP or just average reviews are looked at first. It's subjective as not all director's and VPs know who works for them and who actually gets work done well. Its the political game to a point as well. Yes, it's personal sometimes.
Obviously they offer retirement bridges and payouts to the volunteers, but that's never enough. A few days ahead of time, HR works with IT to prepare to cut access to log-in and building access at the time emplyees are told. Most of the time they cowardly leave the dirty work to the senior and direct managers of those getting let go. They are told the afternoon before or morning of. They are given a script and a list. An HR person will sit with them and explain the process.
I have been on both sides of this. It su-ks. I have left every organization that made me do mass layoffs. not because of the fact they happened, but because of the cowardly way they do it.
I can tell you how it works from direct experience. I’m a senior director who has been involved in decisions for two rounds of layoffs over the past year.
Finance determines how many positions need to be eliminated and gives each business unit’s senior leader (usually at the VP level, but sometimes a managing director, depending on the unit) their specific job elimination target they need to hit.
The business unit leader either a) tells their direct leadership team (high band 5+) how much each of them need to cut from their individual teams and asks them to provide a list of names or b) the leader comes up with the list of names themselves and doesn’t tell their direct reports anything until the day the layoffs happen.
Finance, HR and ELT approve the final lists.
Impacted employees are notified. This can be very awkward. Sometimes the manager who actually has to notify an impacted employee had ZERO input into the decision and only found out about it themselves the same day of the layoffs. I’ve had to make decisions about people on my team but wasn’t allowed to tell their direct manager or supervisor before the layoff occurred. I also wasn’t allowed to ask any of the managers on my team for input on which positions/people should be eliminated. This is being kept very tight, primarily at a band 6+ level, with high band 5s sometimes being involved.
This is exactly how it happened both times in my org. Other people managers I’ve talked to confirmed they had the same experience. It really su-ks and I’ve lost some good people. I also know that I could be cut at any time. This company is imploding.
@a2 Not just outliers in salary, but outliers in who is vocal vs who tows the line. If you shut up and get in line, your typical "yes person" you are likely fine. If you rock the boat, albeit to share ideas and actually give suggestions to improve or do something better... well, you might just find yourself on the block. My experience is that many managers and directors are just doing lip service. Interesting how all of sudden there are many Directors and Sr. Directors, (with Chiefs of Staffs, which is something new in the last 2 yrs), and where do these people all come from.... Capital One.
My guess is they get a target to cut. They get some guidance about people who are outliers in salary, have fewer direct reports than other managers (where applicable), or underperform. Maybe then managers advocate for critical roles or try to find funding.
Then the target to cut changes and like every big decision around here lately they just go random and start hacking away.
As in who makes decisions on who to let go specifically not whether to do layoffs or not