Conducting Employee Layoffs

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Industry or global shut down, cut cost, and spin off are few reasons why employees are laid off. Fallon and McConnell (2007) argue that most times economic issues are the reason for layoffs by companies. Today, many organizations are forced to reduce their workforce due to these factors. However, before layoffs occur in organizations, there are numerous steps that have to been taken to ensure effective layoff process. The selection criteria are the most important aspect of organization initial decision to conduct a workforce reduction. Decisions in regards to which employees leave or which employees stay would need to establish before conducting employees layoffs. Personnel policy service inc (n.d) state that it tends to have much discretion by employers in determining which employees are to be laid off. However, to prevent discrimination claims, they suggest that companies use business-related and objective criteria, such as length of service (seniority), performance rating and merit, job status, job skills, and job elimination.

Seniority is a common selection criteria used by many companies in determining which employees leave and who remain. Under seniority-based layoffs, the most recently hired employees are the first to be laid off. Both Fallon and McConnell (2007) and Personnel policy service inc (n.d) state that the advantage of using seniority is that it is a fair and the safest means of determining who employees to layoff. Personnel policy service inc (n.d) argues that it is also very easy to implement seniority as the selection criteria. However, using seniority as the sole selection criteria has it disadvantages. According to Personnel policy service inc (n.d),companies that use seniority as their sole selection cri...

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...re is a great need to reduce workforce, McConnell (2006) argues that measures such as early retirement, attrition, hiring freezes ,voluntary separation and reduced work hours should be explored first before resorting to layoffs .

Works Cited

Fallon, L.F, & McConnell, C.R. (2007). Human resource management in health care. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett publishers.

Guerin, L.(n.d). Making layoff decisions: Before laying off workers, consider alternatives and set criteria for which employees to lay off. Retrieved from http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/making-layoff-decisions-29949.html

McConnell, C, R. (2006). Umiker management skills for the new health care supervisor (4th ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett publishers.

Personnel policy services inc (n.d).Common questions in layoffs. Retrieved from http://www.ppspublishers.com/articles/layoffs.htm

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