Managers, do you feel guilty after laying off your employee?
This is one of the things I fear about being a manager( I am currently one). Screwing someone's life and delivering the bad message. Managers who had to do this before, how did you feel after letting your employee go and make peace?
It sucks to deliver bad news. Period. Especially, to someone you’ve worked with and relate to as a person. But if you have a good relationship with that person and things have come to a lay-off, and you’re honest about the reasons, people do understand and get over it, even if it’s hard to accept when the news breaks.
Layoffs are always hard , performance or company/team wide. But because of shortage of engineering talent - all of them finds another one pretty quick. That makes it little easier in long term. Read "Hard Things" from Andersen - highly recommended.
Great, it’s a huge weight off of mine and Amazon’s shoulder. Plus now I get to fill their job with someone competent.
Amazon culture detected.
OP asked for layoff not PIP/performance linked attrition
I feel horrible if the reason for firing is "You aren't good enough". If the reason is "I asked you to do X, and you argued and said you didn't want to and I kept asking you to do X because it's part of your job, and I told you you needed to or get fired and you kept arguing", then yeah...not sorry.
LOL, so binary.... I wish it was that simple.
I'm always curious how Google handles poor performers. I figure it doesn't happen too often due to the ridiculous interview process, but some must slip through the cracks.
Layoffs are horrible. If you're letting somebody go for bad performance it's one thing (still not fun) but with layoffs usually the person did nothing to deserve losing their job. It is the hardest part of the job.
Is it a true layoff or layoff to cover up bad performance? If it's a true layoff (which is typically business reasons such as closure of a plant or business unit or change in strategy etc) you should be utmost professional and in most cases not just you but entire management is responsible for that decision and likely will pay severance. In that case, promise to help your employee by offering to provide recommendations for his job search, as well as referrals and guidance. If it's due to bad performance, it needs to be handled very differently.
At large companies layoffs are just a way to get rid of poor performers efficiently - no PIP. Never felt bad about people unwilling to pull their own weight being let go.
Only when it’s a good person who will have a hard time finding a job after the layoff. That’s almost never the case I’m Bay Area. It’s either really low performers who expected to get laid off and everyone that gets laid off regardless how can bad they are can find something in this economy.
Or work somewhere where letting someone go is super common (and in fact expected) and you wouldn't have too much guilt.
Unless you are a sociopath, it will be hard.