The recent massive tech (and beyond) layoffs have been devastating! While many impacted people are complaining their former employers being ridiculously faceless, companies are hosting post-layoff town halls trying to “comfort” the ones survived - no matter how pointless that is.
A massive layoff usually stays stealth until it happens. The majority of the people are kept in dark until it’s too late to take any action. The top post-layoff syndrome for people survived is the fear of uncertainty - uncertainty about job security. But no company can promise that in an uncertain time. So in post-layoff town halls, you often hear questions and answers in themes like the following. And I’m just putting them out bluntly.
- “Will there be more layoffs?” - “Sorry but no guarantee. We will do it again if we feel it’s necessary.”
- “How do you decide who to layoff?” - “We had a seemingly systematic and fair approach but we actually don’t have much clue so let’s say that we cannot share more details.”
- “Why do you layoff? Is layoff the right decision?” - “We think so! And here is some backing data that might or might not be related.”
At the bottom of heart, people who asked these questions are probably aware that they wouldn’t get any more certainty from their corporate leaders. Most individuals are really just numbers to the corp. And there is probably nothing wrong about that. The questions are merely a civilized way to express our anger and helplessness. From that perspective, maybe it’s not entirely pointless…