Dismissal Meeting: The Art of Delivering Bad News

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Coping Techniques
DM Meeting
Three Effects of Layoffs
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

Laying off a staff member is a challenging process that requires a substantial effort due to the possible ethical and emotional issues that a manager may experience in the process (Hess & Bacigalupo, 2015). The very phenomenon of a layoff is typically rendered as the dismissal of an employee under the pressure of circumstances such as an economic crisis and the ensuing threat of collapse. Consequently, the subject matter is traditionally looked down upon as the last resort of a firm and a choice with an intrinsically flawed ethical basis.

Nevertheless, the use of a layoff may be viewed as a means to avoid greater injustice, such as the need to dismiss the entire staff due to the firm’s untimely demise. Therefore, while being admittedly hard to accept, the decision concerning the layoff of the employee must be taken. With the adoption of an adequate communication strategy, a reasonable negotiation approach, and the willingness of the company to compromise, the layoff may have no adverse effects on the company and its operations.

Coping Techniques

Since the very concept of a layoff incorporates a certain element of injustice, the process of laying an employee off is just as uncomfortable for the manager as it is for an employee. It is the latter, however, that suffers the greatest shock and, therefore, needs support and compassion (Gupta, 2013). Therefore, coping mechanisms for both parties need to be represented in the course of communication.

The issue of self-blame is, perhaps, the first problem to consider avoiding when addressing the issue. It is important that the employee’s self-esteem should not drop because of the layoff, and that the employee should not guilt-trip the manager into changing the decision. Therefore, sympathy toward the employee and the recognition of the latter’s contribution to the company’s growth, as well as the acknowledgment of their professional expertise, must be viewed as the foundation for the communication.

Furthermore, the manager must make sure that the environment, in which the conversation is going to take place, should be as relaxing and soothing as possible. Thus, the possibility of angry outbursts on the staff member’s side will be avoided. The coping technique based on the spatial characteristics of the environment that the meeting is going to be held at is crucial as it will prevent possible outbursts of aggression from the staff member to be laid off.

Last but definitely not least, the manager should adjust the employee’s expectations prior to starting the dialogue. It is essential to facilitate the environment, in which the employee will not be baffled by the information presented to them. Thus, cautious warnings indicating that the subject of the conversation is going to be rather heavy will be required. The coping technique based on introducing the employee to negative information gradually, therefore, should also be incorporated into the general approach to be adopted by the manager.

DM Meeting

The first step to being taken after the decision to dismiss an employee has been made is to notify the person in question about the on-coming meeting. It is imperative to give the employee enough time to get ready for the conversation. Additionally, the manager may recommend the employee to bring someone to support or represent them and warn that the company’s side will also be represented by an official. While it is the employee’s choice whom to choose for support, i.e., a friend or a representative of the union, it is desirable that eh arguments of both sides should be represented from a legal perspective; otherwise, the company may face a lawsuit.

Next, the manager should hold the meeting in the office. It should be borne in mind that the conversation is likely to be followed by other meetings with the employee; therefore, it must be brief, and concise, yet the manager must also be sympathetic to the employee. During the meeting, the essential information must be archived so that the parties could return to the essential statements as soon as the time for the next appointment comes.

After the meeting takes place, the manager should review the crucial points that have been covered in the course of the conversation and make certain that the foundational information should be well documented. It is desirable that the data retired in the course of the communication process should afterward be submitted in a digital format to the head of the HR department. The given measure will help prevent possible misconceptions from occurring during the following meetings.

As the conversation ends the time and date for the next meeting should be defined; thus, the manager and the employee will be able to keep track of the essential information. Furthermore, the objectives to be attained during the conversation must be identified so that the manager and the employee could reach an agreement. Once the essential issues to be discussed in the course of the next meeting are identified, the process of managing the layoff will be simplified significantly.

Similarly, the next meeting is to be held in the same manner. The outcomes of the meeting should be documented and submitted in a digital (.docx,.txt,.pdf, etc.) format. The information in question will later be filed into the company’s HR database for further references. The given steps can be viewed as not only the precaution measures in case of the employee filing a lawsuit but also the means of improving the communication process by analyzing the past experiences, identifying the mistakes that may have been made in the process, and improving the communication strategy adopted by the organization members.

Compensation

Determining the amount of compensation to be paid to the employee will require the analysis of the losses that the latter will take as a result of the company’s decision. To be more exact, it will be required to find out whether the employee is expecting the layoff and whether they have already identified several job options outside of the company. In case the latter supposition is affirmed, the total compensation amount may be lowered slightly (Employee resource guide for SPA layoffs, 2015).

It is suggested that, in case the employee does not experience any financial issues at present and is capable of finding a job within a relatively short amount of time, the layoff should equal the fifteen-day-salary worth of the staff member. The specified amount of money is legally considered acceptable; however, the manager will have to make sure that the company should be protected from a discrimination lawsuit. Indeed, the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (EEOC, 2016) states clearly that the dismissal decision made on the grounds of any form of discrimination, including racial, gender-related (i.e., pregnancy-based), ethnic, and other types thereof, will be subjected to a judicial control (Severance pay, 2016).

Chart

Chart.

As the chart above shows, there is a strong need to conduct another meeting with the employee after the dismissal. Thus, possible misunderstandings will be addressed and prevented. Moreover, the meeting will help create an environment that will allow for improving the emotional experience of the employee.

Three Effects of Layoffs

Being a rather drastic measure that a company needs to adopt in order to retain its profits and remain competitive in the global economy, a layoff affects an organization deeply on a number of levels. First and most obvious, the fact that the HR manager must bend the corporate ethics to make the specified decision. As a result, the very fabric of the corporate ethics suffers; moreover, the fact that the organization is laying off an employee sends a negative message to the rest of the staff members. As a result, the productiveness thereof drops, reducing the firm’s profit margin. Another obvious financial issue, the costs related to the severance pay to the employees that have to leave and the extra payment to the staff members who will have to work extra due to the change in the workload.

Second, layoffs create the environment in which the rest of the staff feels insecure, and the managers experience awkwardness and even guilt for having to lay some of the staff off. Thus, the stressful state that both the managers and the remaining staff are likely to be in for an extensive amount of time after the layoff is likely to affect the company negatively. For instance, the lack of enthusiasm among the employees may lead to a drop in the firm’s efficacy and its services’ quality.

The third and the most disturbing effect of layoff that a company can suffer concerns the change in the quality of communication between the organization and the customers. Because of the inability to comply with the current quality standards due to the rescheduling and the related processes, entrepreneurship is likely to lose a significant amount of its target audience to more successful firms. Hence, the loss of a solid customer base is the third negative outcome to be expected from the HRM policy based on layoffs.

Conclusion

When introducing the phenomenon of a layoff into the framework of the organization’s HRM strategy, the leader of the entrepreneurship faces the threat of reducing the profit margins and causing a significant drop in the production rates. Therefore, layoffs should not be viewed as the foundation for the firm’s HR policy even in the environment that can be described as economically and financially hostile.

Nevertheless, compromises have to be made, which means that the current layoff has to take place. The process of dismissal, however, must be carried out in a manner that will prevent any further conflicts from occurring and affecting the company. It will also be necessary to make sure that the employee that will be laid off should not consider the overall experience of working in the company as negative due to the reason for their dismissal. Therefore, the adoption of negotiation techniques based on compromise and collaboration should be used.

Reference List

EEOC. (2016). Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Web.

Employee resource guide for SPA layoffs. (2015). Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina. Web.

Gupta, V. (2013). An analysis of attrition: retention strategy for the IT/BPO Industry. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Management Studies, 1(7), 434-442. Web.

Hess, J. D., & Bacigalupo, A. C. (2015). Enhancing management problem-solving processes through the application of emotional intelligence skills. Journal of Management Policies and Practices, 2(3), 1-17. Web.

Severance pay. (2016). Web.

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