I’ve been here long enough to witness some very questionable leadership behavior. They praise and promote employees, only to lay them off later. For such a small company, the turnover rate is shockingly high—about 30 people let go over the past four years, which is substantial for a business with only 50-60 employees. Recently, about 30% of the staff were laid off in order to “extend the runway” and it caught everyone by surprise. There were constant reassurances during company meetings that the business was doing well, no one saw this coming. Even after the recent separation of two salespeople, we were assured it has nothing to do with financials and no more cuts are coming.
I understand that companies sometimes need to make tough decisions—perhaps some employees didn’t live up to expectations, or priorities shifted. But the way they handle these situations reveals a broken moral compass. It’s clear they use people to meet short-term goals, then cut them loose without any empathy—affecting people in difficult situations (a single father, a new mother, and a sole breadwinner whose wife had just given birth to name a few). And while I don’t believe in keeping employees solely because of their personal circumstances, these were highly praised and promoted team members, some of whom had been with the company from the very beginning. On top of that, the severance offered is laughable.
For those who think the company did what it had to do to stay afloat, fair enough—but there are better ways to handle this:
1. Be transparent about financial struggles.
2. Announce that layoffs may be coming, so people can plan for uncertainty.
3. If finances are truly dire, stop hiring and stop excessive spending on company-wide events, booths, travel, etc.
4. If you care about your employees, offer them choices—some might willingly take a severance package, while others might prefer a pay cut to keep their jobs.