I am a founder/CEO myself (a very small company so I don't have experience of mass layoffs for full disclosure). However, I don't get this explanation. If you feel genuine responsibility for the people, then figure out a way to NOT fire them. Or be honest and admit that the company needs to make more money/cut costs. Trust me, no one wants to hear "we love you so much but we have to fire you and I feel so bad". It just doesn't land. Be honest, be open and be willing to provide a good severance.

It's like that scene in Moneyball where they have to tell the player that they've been traded/cut

It reminds me of that meme template. “I feel responsible for this layoff.” “Responsible enough to mitigate it or lay yourself off?” “Well, no, not that responsible…”

This is a good idea in theory, and in a lot of situations it's definitely under-used. But I don't think it's realistic to expect companies to never have to lay off employees.

> then figure out a way to NOT fire them

like reduce the salary of the c-suite staff by 50% so they are only making 300% more than the average workers. or reduce c-suite salary to the lowest wage while allowing them to live off of their stock and other benefits like company cars, expense accounts, etc. granted, that's for the larger companies, but the bigger companies never do anything like that

The paradox can be resolved by assuming they are fallible and limited human beings - they're laying a bunch of people off, they understand at some level that this is evidence that their poor hiring and management decisions have caused some amount of unnecessary suffering, so they feel bad.

But they aren't foresighted enough to have handled the situation appropriately in advance. Or they might have run into the limits of their ability to empathise and only understand that they feel bad but not that the fired people probably feel worse. I'd bet more on the former.

In many ways it is a triumph of modern society how ordinary the people are who head these large and complicated world-spanning corporate entities.

That's a whole lot easier to do in a small company, but not very realistic beyond that.

I have been through the process of cutting staff in a few different roles (director, outside consultant), more times than I care to count.

> If you feel genuine responsibility for the people, then figure out a way to NOT fire them.

I have never seen that end well. One deep, clean cut, is far better than many little ones.

If you have to do back to back cuts because the first wasn't deep enough people start to panic. If you cut back the niceties, you're telling folks there is trouble and you're likely putting off that inevitability (and making the eventual cut deeper, with smaller pay outs for everyone).

The moment you sense the issue, look at the numbers. Figure out what the worst case scenario is, and look at that. Does a deep cut get the people going severance, and the "lets save everyone" approach mean your locking the front door and handing out last paychecks?

> Or be honest and admit that the company needs to make more money/cut costs.

This isn't the convo you have with the people who are leaving, this is the conversation you have to have with the people you didn't let go. Your choices are A) look like an asshole for cutting too many people or B) look like you did not cut deep enough and people panic or see that it isnt the last round. There is NO in between. The only thing that spares you in scenario A is that you gave people enough runway in their exit - 16 weeks (from the article) is a great starting point, but a week per year is an insult.