Are you going to send out hundreds of calendar invites spread across weeks for the sole purpose of being nice to people? Are affected employees expected to queue up to get their personal “you’re fired” before their access is cut?
Yes, people generally put two and two together when there was a calendar invite with their manager and HR.
We were in a European office though, so layoffs aren't American-style "escorted from the office with immediate effect".
Second time was smaller (maybe 10 people) and fully remote, and I had a surprise meeting with my direct manager over video chat.
I personally don't care so much about how the message is delivered, and more about severance, but it's interesting to see how different people handle the situation differently. Makes you wonder what alternatives they considered that they decided a pre-recorded message was best.
I've been through a group, but face-to-face, layoff. 150 people in that scenario would be very doable if you split that into like 3 groups.
1:1 would be even better, and I think that ought to be doable, too, yes.
If a manager has several layoffs to do, you have people waiting on pins and needles for the dreaded calendar invite over a few hours or even days.
In a layoff, it’s important to do it humanely, quickly, and let people settle down as soon as you can. It’s bad for both the laid off and the remaining employees you have a trickle layoffs happening over a longer period of time… it’s less bad if you rip the bandaid off quickly.
You want to be able to say to your team, “Hey guys, we had a layoff this morning, and everyone affected has already been notified. It’s all done at this point - everyone in this room is not affected.”
If I hear through the grapevine there’s a layoff happening this morning, and my manager schedules a surprise 1:1 with me in a few hours because he has a few of them to do, I’m going to be a wreck between now and then.
Management and leadership is practically a lost art these days, so many organizations are just filled with managers who haven't the first fucking idea how to actually manage people.
All that said to be like: "Well how SHOULD we correctly fire 150 people?" I dunno, to me that's like saying how do I hit a tree with my car in such a way as to make sure I'm not paralyzed? Like so much has already gone wrong to bring you to where this is a pertinent question that I don't think there's really a right answer at this point, there's just gradations of bad.
Atlassian grew from 3,600 people in 2019 to 12.100 in 2024. Triple in 5 years. Some adjustments are expected. Sucks to lose your job, but you might not have it in the first place.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1276817/atlassian-number...
So, I will fully grant that my original statement doesn't really matter here; this wasn't a department that over-scaled to meet a project that didn't exist, this is in fact, the far shittier kind of layoffs: the ones that are a direct result of a company taking by all accounts a fully functioning department and taking an axe to it to improve their bottom line in 6 months, trading experienced workers who likely have relationships with their clients for soulless chatbots for their customers to now argue with.
So yes, I fully acknowledge I was wrong, and also, this is shittier than I assumed without reading. Take that how you will.