In case you hadn’t heard, the economy and possibly your job is the inspiration for a new — and some say, tasteless, sleazy, pathetic — reality TV show.
In this show, described as “Survivor” meets “The Office,” colleagues who work for small businesses that must lay off employees decide who gets terminated.
During each episode of “Someone’s Gotta Go,” to air on Fox, employees get access to everyone’s performance reviews and salary at a small company. Fox’s reality chief Mike Darnell said in an interview with Variety: “When someone is arbitrarily let go the first reaction usually is, ‘How come that person was fired when another idiot is still here?’ This finally gives employees a chance to make that decision instead of a boss.”
Arbitrary? Managers beg to differ. They’ve got a method to their madness and lots of metric-based performance management system jargon to prove it.
Sometimes they apply an “adverse impact analysis,” explains human resource professional Linda Konstan, “to see whether particular classes may be disproportionately affected.”
They use “success criterion” says Francie Dalton, an executive coach who helps CEOs make layoff decisions and rank “functional versatility” and “essential outputs” to make “rational release decisions.”
Prioritizing
Judah Lerer of Continental Copiers, a small company going through layoffs, says the first thing to consider is which staff member is “on board” and which has been a “drag” on the company emotionally. Those who “demand too much management energy are the ones that are laid off first,” says Lerer, because these days “management needs to be moving the company forward as opposed to baby-sitting unhappy staff.”
It’s key to identify “pivotal or mission critical roles” and keep top talent in those roles, says consultant Michael Couch. These are the people everyone agrees are consistent top performers, flexible, comfortable with change and strong team contributors.
Organizational development consultant Robert Dixon, who says he has “laid off more people than I care to remember” looks at a company’s “going-forward organization strategy,” then asks, who’s got the knowledge, skills and competencies to best support that strategy?
“The work does not go away, it just keeps getting redistributed,” he says. So he looks at past performance, whether someone has “the passion for the work that lies ahead” and is independent, motivated and naturally curious … so that the manager isn’t “required to provide day-to-day, hour-to-hour direction.”
I have sat in meetings where managers analyze mounds of data to decide, as Dalton puts it, “which functions are nonessential or could be subcontracted with no erosion in quality.” It can be complex.
It is an analytical process to “clearly articulate legitimate business reasons” and written records to support the reasoning for who gets laid off, explains Konstan, adding that it’s also a miserable thing to do.
“It’s always emotional,” says Couch, and in the past, the decision to cut someone “may have been driven by not meeting annual projections or analyst expectations. Now it’s clear that survival is an issue.”
It’s a safe bet that managers have the power to decide who stays or goes at your company. You’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth on what they base their decision. Apply this information. There are no guarantees. But being in a critical role and being a flexible, independent, curious, consistent top performing team player certainly increases the odds that you will be the one who’s gotta stay.
As for the reality show, let’s hope it meets the same fate it hopes to promote and they fire it before it airs.â–
