Title: Hi HN, it’s bad out here and I need advice on the most humane way to lay people off. It’s more than half of the company, the company itself is small (less than 50 people) and very close. I’m the head of engineering, so I have a large share of those kind folks to let go. Literally I have to lay off friends.<p>I know we’re gonna do the basics as best we can of course: more than 2 months’ redundancy package, try and find roles for people as best we can, do the paperwork right so they can claim anything they need to.<p>I want to know your advice for the human element; how to tell people and not be cruel. How to balance that against honestly trying to save what we can.<p>Eg. I hate that when I read stories about layoffs it always comes as this awful surprise and then you have to immediately leave, it’s so abrupt how can you say goodbye properly? But that seems to be some protection against someone acting in a way they normally wouldn’t and doing something destructive in the heat of the moment. How can we possibly preserve both properties?<p>We want to tell people one-at-a-time and in-person. Is this best? Why do companies even mass-tell people? But then I don’t know how anyone can keep their composure going back to their desk to pick things up though... Quickly word would get out, diminishing the point of telling people one-at-a-time. Where to have these conversations is also an issue, the office is pretty small. And we need to have a lot of them in just a short time too.<p>It’s going to be awful regardless, but I would like any advice on how to make it the least awful. The least-awful, that is, for those who have to leave; since if I get the dubious privilege of riding the death spiral a bit longer then we can leave my own feelings out of this.
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