The Employers’ Guide To ‘Letting People Go’

With the current economic climate fogging the minds of employers across the globe, the inevitable spectre of unemployment can’t be far away.  It’s a grim situation, costs need to be cut, and frankly, if you’re reading The Fix, things can’t be looking too good. With that in mind, we want to help make sackings work for you with our easy to use, 3-step guide to ‘Letting People Go’.

Call A Meeting

The starting point. Well, the starting point after you’ve decided to let people go. It’s always best to get everyone together. And don’t refer to it as a meeting. Try ‘chat’, ‘get together’ or ‘party’ (more on this in Point 2). This makes everyone feel like that they’re getting a big treat. Maybe quad biking or a trip to Lazer Quest. The knock-on effect is that you have a mass of happiness before breaking the bad news. By the time the news has sunk into every single employee you’ll have made a fast, totally unscathed exit. It’s also time-efficient. 

Choose Your Words Carefully

Redundancies. It’s not a word we in the business world like to use; unfortunately it can be difficult to avoid, but it’s not impossible - take the title of this guide for instance. A good tip here is to avoid terminology you might usually reserve for livestock.

Try phrases like: Family. Valued employees. Streamlining. Skimming. Trimming. Temporary occupation realignment. I’m not the bad guy here.

Avoid phrases like: Drones. Swine. Morons. Walking meat lumps. Filth. Culling. Butchering. Lambs to the slaughter. I’m the daddy now.

Location. Location. Location

Avoid holding your meeting by any windows. It makes you easy pray for snipers and throwing. Try outside. The fresh air will act as a valuable cooling agent. Once you’ve broken the news, bolt the doors to the building. Staff are notorious plunderers who will now be forced to wonder home without their possessions. These are now your possessions. Why not pawn these items for extra capital, after all what are your ex-staff going to do? Sue you? Not likely without a job. In the words of the tough talking tycoons the Gibb Brothers, You Win Again. Yes you do.

You now know how to make the toughest job in the world as easy as filing for corporate bankruptcy. So what are you still doing here? Go shatter some dreams, you winner!