My Layoff Story: What if Organizations gave a Choice?
Here is the story of when I was laid off from Google & my perspective on how organizations can do better.
Buckle up because this is a long one.
A year ago, in January of 2023, I was laid off by Google. I had been there for 7 years, working across two departments: People Operations and Google Cloud. My performance ratings were positive and I had been promoted 3 times over my tenure.
My last role involved managing a team of ~8 folks in our Voice of the Customer department of Google Cloud. We led research to measure the experience of our B2B customers to drive improvements to our products and services.
To be honest, I was struggling to stay motivated in that role near the end.
I wanted to get back in touch with my personal values. I wanted to work on programs that were more focused on people and less on profits.
I found a great opportunity that would let me do that and still keep my role at Google.
There was a program where employees of Google could apply to go on a sabbatical from their current job and work 100% for 6 months on a nonprofit/civic entity program to help the local community. It was called the Google.Org Fellowship. I applied to this program in Oct. of 2022, was accepted to program manage a project on affordable housing in the SF Bay Area, and started on Jan 1st…. 19 days before I was laid off.
I woke up the morning of Jan. 20th, 2023 to a few text messages from friends, some inside Google, some outside - “Are you awake? “ - “Have you checked your email yet?” - “I saw the news about layoffs, are you ok?”
I was not naive. Tech had started laying off people in late 2022 and I saw the writing on the wall. I knew something was coming, but did not know when or who it would hit.
What I did not expect was how it would be implemented.
After I woke up and received these messages, I tried to log into my work computer. I was locked out. I messaged my friend who was still employed and asked, “Do they cut your access if you are laid off, because I cannot get into my work computer.” She replied “yes, I am so sorry.”
Apparently, I had received an email to my personal account at 2 am communicating that I was impacted. I had to dig under all of the spam that buried it. It was titled “Notice regarding your employment.”
That morning was a slurry of texts, emails, and calls. There was no public ‘list’ of who was impacted. The only way that people still employed could tell who was let go was if they tried to instant message someone and it bounced.
Those of us on the outside scrambled to figure out what was happening and worked to get in contact with one another. I created a support group of 20+ folks across my department that were impacted.
It was a rough day.
The kicker is… if Google would have asked me to volunteer for the layoff with the same severance package I received, I would have taken it without hesitation.
Instead, from my perspective, they destroyed the culture of transparency and collaboration that they claimed to value.
Studies show that employees who survive a layoff are less productive, less innovative, and more likely to leave voluntarily in the next couple of years compared to before the layoff (HBR).
Research indicates that not only do layoffs reduce employee satisfaction for those that remain, they do NOT seem to be related to increased profitability in the long-run. This layoff ‘solution’ that many organizations are implementing does not appear to fix the underlying problems.
There ARE better ways.
The first is to avoid a layoff or reduction altogether. To do this, you need to deeply look at your corporate strategy and build a sustainable long-term plan for the future. Are there other costs that you can reduce if your operating budget is to blame? Are there ways that you can retrain employees when their jobs become redundant? There are many talented strategic and financial planners that can help your organization dig into how you can operate more effectively.
If you determine a layoff cannot be avoided, a voluntary reduction in force is something you should consider if you value your organizational culture.
Not only can a voluntary reduction in force help retain employee engagement levels, it can also help reduce legal consequences related to employment laws.
There is not a one size fits all solution to organizational problems, but too many companies today are using layoffs as a fix for their various issues. If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Research indicates that there will be long-term consequences to their employees and ROI if this continues. It is time for executive leaders to learn how to use the other tools in the shed.
Back to my story
I went through many emotions in the weeks after the layoff, but mostly, I felt deeply disrespected. I had worked at Google for 7 years, and my farewell was an email in the middle of the night.
I recognize that I am very privileged. I got a good severance package. I was a citizen in the country I lived in and did not have to worry about deportation. I was already considering moving away from corporate life. Many people that have experienced a layoff over the last year are not this lucky.
Yet, I still wonder what it would have been like if we were given the choice: stay or move on with severance. They were paying out the generous severance packages anyway and with burnout rates post-pandemic, I do think enough employees from the affected departments would have volunteered. I know I would have.
In April of 2023, I started Org Empathy Consulting, LLC with the goal of helping organizations balance the complexities of doing business and being human. I want to promote building empathy into how we make decisions in our organizations and go about our daily interactions. Compared to a year ago, I happier with my ability to live my values through my work.
Unfortunately for many others, more and more layoffs continue to occur, not just in Tech, but across other industries as well. Companies continue to cut costs this way, even as the economy appears to be recovering.
Organizations need to know that layoffs are not a good solution.
It is time for leadership to think outside the box.
For more posts and resources on how to build empathy into your organizational practices, check out www.organizationalempathy.com