Response: Making Layoff Decision
Part 1: Post a Response
Organizations from time to time must make hard decisions (expand, layoff employees or close a facility). As a manager you will have to use work experiences, advice from supervisors and the organizational culture to support your decision. Organizational culture is the sum of the values and beliefs shared among employees.
Suppose you are a manager who is faced with having to reduce headcount (layoff one of your two employees) in your unit. Sales within the company have declined due to the downward spiral of the economy each department within the organization is faced with making the same decision. Fortunately, you only have to cut one job; others are reducing more.
Mary is in her mid-20s, single, college graduate, she is very hard working and was in the top 10% of the performance ratings this year, she constantly volunteers to travel, work weekends and evenings. However, she supports political causes that could be viewed as contrary to the goals of the company.
Alice is in her mid-40s, has two young children, her husband is a doctor, her performance is good, and she has above average performance reviews. However, she has limited availability on weekends and limitations on overnight travel due to her volunteer work with local charities.
As a manager who would you select to layoff and why?
What other factors can be used to decide who gets laid off in organizations?
How should an organization choose between a decision that is legal and in the best financial interests of the organization, but which could be viewed as unethical?
Response: Making Layoff Decision
As a manager, who would you select to layoff and why?
I would select Alice for the layoff. The factors that I considered while coming up with the decision re the level of performance and availability. Alice is an above-average performer, whereas Mary is a top performer. The performance ratings imply that Mary is more productive than Alice. Alice’s availability is also limited. Mary is usually available and volunteers for travel, works during the weekends and in the evenings. The availability of an employee is highly rewarding to an organization as it aids in the cutting down of costs of wages (Osborne & Hammoud, 2017). Alice’s unavailability is tied to family commitments, which Mary does not have.
What other factors can be used to decide who gets laid off in organizations?
Other criteria that can be used in workforce reduction include employee status, seniority, and employee skills. Under the Employee status-based selection, permanent employees are usually given more job security by their employers compared to part-time and contingent workers (Brown, 2020). The seniority-based criterion applies the concept of the ‘first hired’ and ‘last hired’. The criterion is founded on the supposition that the organization was still successful even before the hiring of the last employees in the team (Brown, 2020). It also presupposes that relatively new employees have not attained the title of organizational assets. Under the skills-based criterion, employers choose to retain employees who have the most valuable and most-sought-after skills (Brown, 2020). This method of selection only favors the younger employees.
How should an organization choose between a decision that is legal and in the best financial interests of the organization, but which could be viewed as unethical?
At times organizational laws and ethics clash. For instance, an organization might be torn between hiring retaining an old employee and laying off a younger employee. While the older employees are covered by the law and deserve positions in organizations, most people believe that it is unethical to retain the older generations in the workforce at the expense of the younger generations (Dragomir, 2017). In such a situation, the organization will have to choose what is both legal and best for its financial interests. Organizations must always choose legality and the fulfillment of financial interests as they have greater implications for their success.
References
Brown, A. (2020, March 5). How Do You Choose Which Employees to Layoff? Retrieved from Career Minds: https://blog.careerminds.com/how-do-you-choose-which-employees-to-layoff
Dragomir, V. D. (2017). Conflicts of Interest in Business: A Review of the Concept. Accounting and Management Information Systems, 16(4), 472-489.
Osborne, S., & Hammoud, M. S. (2017). Effective Employee Engagement in the Workplace. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, 16(1), 50–67.