DISMISSAL MEETING

PROPOSE THREE (3) WAYS THAT A MANAGER CAN COPE WITH ANY NEGATIVE EMOTIONS THAT MAY ACCOMPANY AN EMPLOYEE LAYOFF. One way that a manager can help ease the pain of an employee that’s been laid off is to grant the employee a generous severance package which could provide economic benefits that reflects management’s compassion and understanding of the impact of the termination. Although the trend is for companies to offer less in severance payments, 93 percent of them require employees to sign releases of liability in order to receive severance pay. A great way to help soften the blow of a layoff is for the company or manager to do their best to find those leaving the company a new job. This could mean calling around to see if anyone is hiring, providing great job recommendations and even calling the competition to see if they have any openings. The company should also cover the expenses for some career counseling. The company can provide on-site training around resume writing and how to ace an interview for all employees. This can cause loyalty from all employees even the ones being laid off. Another way to help the laid off employee is to offer psychological counseling paid for by the employer because according to a lot psychologists losing your job is similar to losing someone close to you. A lot of employment consultants say those who have lost their jobs experience stages of grieving similar to the ones people go through after a loved one has died. The psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross stated that recently laid off people go through a wave of emotions that run from shock and denial to anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. Most job counselors say the key to surviving a job layoff is not realizing that emotions may sprout up but also knowing how to deal with them.
DESCRIBE A STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS OF CONDUCTING THE DISMISSAL MEETING Step #1 A face to face meeting should be set up, it should never be done by letter, email or over the phone. The immediate supervisor of the laid off employee should be responsible because he or she is usually the one most familiar with the reasons for the discharge. Sometimes it’s best to have a third party or witness available so the person does not feel that he or she is being treated unfairly. Step #2 The meeting should be conducted out of sight and no place within earshot where other employees can hear the conversation. It should also be held somewhere where as to not alert other workers to what is going on. Sometimes it’s best to hold the meeting in a public place because it may be easier to avoid emotional outbursts on anyone’s part and it will be easy to end the meeting by just getting up and walking away. Step #3 The best time to hold the meeting is early in the day and early in the week . I think this is a very important part of the dismissal meeting due to my own personal experience. In 2003 I was part of a company’s downsizing and I got laid off and the timing was terrible, I had just returned from out of state where I had attended my grandfather’s funeral and on my first day back to work my supervisor informed me that I was getting laid off due to downsizing and confiscated my work van, laptop, cell phone, and pager. I was devastated by the uncertainness of my future but the company did give me a nice severance package to help me get along for about 2 months. Avoiding Fridays and the day before a holiday or vacation is best because letting an employee go on a Friday gives the employee two days to contemplate his treatment by the company and to look for ways to retaliate. Discharging a person early in the week provides him with an opportunity to focus on the future and begin looking for a new job right away. Step #4 The actual meeting should last about 10 to 15 minutes and have the sole purpose of providing a simple and precise statement of the decision to terminate the employment relationship. During the meeting make sure that there is an adequate reason for the discharge. Many workers sue their ex-employers because they really want a full explanation of why they were let go and a chance to give their side of the story. You should seek out the employee’s explanation or interpretation of events, allow them to vent a little bit without interrupting them. Making it clear that the decision is final is very important also because this way it’s easier to keep your cool and keep control of the situation. Briefly running through the benefits ensures the employee understands his vacation pay, separation pay and continuation of health insurance and life insurance that you are offering. You also need to explain the job reference policy to the employee like if the policy is to provide only job title, dates of employment, and salary history. The final thing to do during the meeting is to collect the company’s property like keys, cell phones, company car, company credit cards and any other property belonging to the company.
DETERMINE THE COMPENSATION THAT THE FICTITIOUS COMPANY MAY PROVIDE TO THE SEPARATED EMPLOYEE.
The employer will provide the laid off employee one week’s pay for every year that the employee has worked. The employee made $1000 a week and worked for 10 years so his compensation will be broken down to 2 payments a month for 5 months where he will get paid $1000 every 2 weeks on the 1st and the 15th of each month.
CREATE A CHART THAT DEPICTS THE TIMELINE OF THE DISPBURSEMENT OF THE COMPENSATION. Severance pay for the next 5 months 1st of the month 15th of the month
January $1000 $1000
February $1000 $1000
March $1000 $1000
April $1000 $1000
May $1000 $1000
June $0 $0
July $0 $0
August $0 $0
September $0 $0
October $0 $0
November $0 $0
December $0 $0
PREDICT THREE (3) WAYS THAT THIS LAYOFF MAY AFFECT THE COMPANY. The remaining employees will be affected mentally. It’s important to communicate effectively and regularly with the staff after layoffs. People may show signs of anxiety, lack of commitment and you may even see a decrease in the quality of the work. It’s very important in the weeks and months following a layoff to show strong leadership strategies to help employees focus on the priorities at a hand and to recommit themselves to the organization. It’s vital that leadership recognize and deal with the emotions of the staff. Management should hold regular meetings with the staff; ask the staff what rumors may be circulating out there and either validate or dispel them; set clear, realistic, attainable short term goals; establish an open door policy; let the staff know that they can and should come directly to you with any questions, concerns or information. The best way to earn respect from employees is to be honest and straight up with them, communicating respectfully also includes telling employees when you don’t know the answers to their questions or concerns. Keeping employees up to date on changes and expectations is good, also involve them in decisions and ask them for their ideas, even if you can’t accommodate them asking shows them that you care. After a downsizing at a company a lot of times the company may lose key talent who decide to depart the company rather than take the risk of being laid off unexpectedly, this strips the company of human capital, critical skills and institutional memory. In some cases downsizing disrupts or destroys the informal networks of employees that often contribute significantly to company productivity. In one study downsizing seems to interfere with the web of informal relationships that innovators use to win support and resources for new products and which helps mesh innovative activities with those of the firm as a whole. A lot of companies or businesses find that the price of downsizing can be high in the costs of legal challenges, disability claims and other unanticipated costs. One of the more positive elements of most layoffs is usually a company restructures. Restructuring can offer a more flexible performance oriented workforce. A number of successful companies attribute much of their success to having created a culture in which employees feel valued and empowered. One common theme to these businesses cultures is an implicit or explicit company commitment to long term employment. A lot of companies found themselves at a competitive disadvantage when market conditions required more employees but when a company engages in responsible restructuring practices they have found it easier to bring back former employees and hire new ones during business upturns. Some companies experience severe public relations problems as the result of downsizing and have found themselves really unpopular with the local communities but companies that downsize responsibly often are rewarded by positive media support and cooperation of unions and community groups. Also investors are more interested in companies that restructure responsibly and more willing to take a chance on them. Diversity can be an issue too when a company doesn’t downsize responsibly because if ill planned it can hit a demographic, gender, or racial groups hard, undermining years of a company efforts to improve its diversity. In recent years there has been a growing emphasis on training. While the traditional notion of lifetime employment has all but disappeared an increasing number of companies are placing an emphasis on lifetime employability by stepping up training programs, by enhancing their job skills companies not only make their employees more valuable but also makes them less vulnerable to the impacts of being laid off.

REFERENCES
Olsen, Lindsay, 2012 May 8, 3 Severance pay questions every employee should ask. U.S. News and World Report, Retreived on February 11, 2014
Valenti, Catherine, 2013 September 7, How to cope when you’ve been laid off. ABC News, retrieved on February 10, 2014, from ABC News Internet Ventures
Stewart, Greg L., Brown, Kenneth G., 2012, Human Resource Management: Linking Strategy to Practice, 2nd edition, Hoboken, N.J., John Wiley & Sons, Inc.