Ask HN: How are big-company layoffs planned and executed? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How are big-company layoffs planned and executed?

2 pointssarabande6 comments

For anyone on the other side of the table (CEO, HR, Operations folks), how have you planned big-company layoffs before and how do you keep it silent before it happens?

For example, in the 12000 person Google layoff today, how did they get a list of 12000 people to layoff? Is it all done at the very top level, or are decisions about who/what to keep delegated to some certain level?

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It varies from company to company. For some, usually the executive team comes up with a percentage of costs that need to be removed and then the message for team managers is to identify the individuals. For others, it's silent and it's more crude - based on numbers/tenure/etc. and automatically filtered by HR and accounting teams and doesn't take into account product/operations. Sometimes, consulting firms would come in and recommend team structures and sizes that drive layoffs as well.

In very large companies, to keep it confidential and SILENT large layoffs are usually known only to about 10 people. The CEO, a board member, 3 lawyers, 1 finance, and usually 4 HR executives. It's really not about who...it's about percentages and what the new budget numbers have to look like. Then it's off to filter by say salaries and reduce count of number of employees impacted.

You'd think a company like Google that just cancels entire products randomly (https://killedbygoogle.com/) would be smart about layoffs but they probably do it like every other large company. Plan from the top with a target percentage, track demographics of those being let go to ensure there aren't age or other discrimination happening and hit the HR, Marketing, Legal, Finance, IT departments heavier - they are cost centers so its an immediate savings without impacting products. First and even second line managers are probably not involved until it happens and then they get told they have a message to deliver.

And what departments are relatively safer than the ones you mentioned?

I survived several layoff rounds at a large company so my guess is no department is safe and they will likely ask every department for X%, just those depts I mentioned maybe for a higher percentage. If you're laying off 5-10% of the company you really don't need a lot of recruiters, right? There are probably obvious employees that are safe, key contributors on key projects they don't want to lose. I don't work there so I don't even know how they are organized.

yes m'lords please enlighten us; GoT is too fresh to re-watch, hopefully this thread will have enough cloak and daggers trivia to keep me warm till next series come

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