Comments on: Confessions of a man who does the layoffs

It's easy to vilify the guy who hands out the pink slips. But contrary to popular notions, these aren't decisions that are taken lightly, at least with the executive we interviewed.

[imhodudes]

You can be sure that every CEO - and his lower level managers - are taking advantage of the public's current perception that widespread layoffs are possible as cover to lay off all the troublesome people - the complainers, the ones who have received too many raises and are older and more expensive than their likely replacements, the ones who didn't catch the right horse in the latest political shuffle, the ones who are just disliked for whatever reason. You can also be sure that if you were in the mailroom, your severance is a much smaller percentage of your already low salary than an exec who was given the boot. Any company that is an exception to this is most likely a non-profit.

[skmurphy]

An interesting perspective. I have been involved in layoff planning and execution as a manager and have always experienced a profound sense of personal failure for having to let folks go. I am not troubled when they are not performing, but I find it deeply troubling to hire someone and have to lay them off. I was struck in the round of layoffs in the last six months of 2008 (which now look to continue into 2009) that very few companies were using temporary salary reductions to manage what appears to be a temporary economic situation for many companies. A number of CEO's have taken a token salary and had the management team take salary cuts deeper than the rank and file to help minimize the depth if not prevent the need for layoffs.