When you know your employees and their personal stories, it makes layoffs even tougher. Let’s face it, letting people go is personal, and it sucks! Although layoffs happen for a number of reasons, the result is the same: your employees just lost their job, source of income, and many times, they’ve lost their dignity. It’s tough, and it’s OK to treat them as such. Ensuring layoffs are handled properly helps the employees impacted, helps you, helps those left behind, and helps the company. Handling a layoff properly, with empathy, ensures your company’s brand and reputation are protected.
Following a layoff, your former employees are more connected than ever before – to other former employees, to their former colleagues, and to the world. When it’s not handled well, those impacted by layoff will share their experience! In fact, 80% of former employees are at risk of damaging your company’s image and reputation following a layoff. If an affected employee relays how unempathetic and uncompassionate they were treated, word will spread, and fast. Their negative experience becomes part of the organization’s reputation and its employer brand, which may deter new talent from applying to your company and would negatively affect the remaining employees. After all, why would they want to stay if their former colleagues were treated so harshly? When will they be next?
Avoiding the risks to your reputation and company image associated with a layoff starts with empathy. Your employees are losing their source of income and security, and for all the work they’ve done, the least you can offer them is a separation with dignity and respect. This not only protects your business’ image but will support your team in the long run. For any organization, reputation is critical to how you’re perceived as a part of your community. How you treat your employees during challenging times can make or break the company’s reputation.
Whether big, medium-sized, or small, your company shouldn’t limit your access to practical, cost-effective tools to offer meaningful support to employees following a layoff. The cost of helping your former employees identify transferable skills to prepare them for the next step in their career and move them to their next career, as quickly as possible, is far less than the cost of lost productivity from disenfranchised employees and a negative image in the community.
Supporting your former employees, and helping them move forward, is available and affordable to any sized company. When this uplifting and supportive experience is shared, your current employees feel more comfortable and respected, and future talent is more excited to work for a company with a reputation for treating their current and former employees with respect and dignity.
Your employees deserve to be treated with respect, and by providing them with LAK Group’s Outplacement Services, you are ensuring they have the tools they need to be successful after their layoff. Giving them access to these resources is a great way of making empathy central to your employer brand. Utilizing this positive reputation puts your company at a competitive advantage that can strengthen your long-term success. By treating your former employees with the care and respect they have earned, you’re not only protecting your company’s reputation, but also demonstrating to your community and other businesses that you truly value your people.