Layoffs Are Hard For Many Reasons

Employment Reductions Affect Many; Let’s Never Forget That

Photo by Lesya Soboleva on Unsplash

Have you ever had to let someone go?

I have. Many times. It’s difficult, and it feels terrible. For everyone.

Why? Because regardless of what anyone says about layoffs, everyone feels their impact. The departing employee, along with their family, friends, and community, is affected. The remaining employees, leaders, and the internal team that supported the departing employee are also impacted. In many cases, the supported team, whether internal or external, experiences effects as well. Finally, those who have to carry out the reductions in force (RIF), if they lead with compassion, are affected too. The number of people impacted is so extensive that I cannot fully do justice to the statement.

Once upon a time in a previous corporate life, I laid off significant numbers of my employees through several rounds of layoffs over the course of a couple of years. Some rounds were more extensive than others, but all had the same effect, both personally and professionally. The toll it takes on a compassionate person to deliver those messages repeatedly can feel absolutely numbing. While every round of layoffs bothered me, I did my best to navigate them with empathy, an essential skill in those situations.

I’m not looking for sympathy or compassion, and I am not the only people leader who has had to do this. These things happen, and many in the business community will confirm that layoffs are just an unfortunate part of business, which I would agree with. To those who would make that argument, I understand. It’s business, and in business, nothing should ever come as a surprise. However, there’s nothing “just” about it, no matter where you sit in the equation. More importantly, through the leadership lens, there’s a larger, more vital message here: as leaders, we shouldn’t lose sight of the deeper impact. No one should, and I certainly won’t. Ever. I learned so much from those experiences, internalizing and reflecting upon the lessons, and I am grateful for them despite the pain they caused so many.

Of course, layoffs are unfortunate, and I recognize that difficult business decisions must be made. I also acknowledge that leaders must push through and move on for the organization’s greater good. However, it’s about the environment and the tone set by the leaders leading up to and through those decisions. There’s nothing transactional about letting people go from their employment, and anyone who argues otherwise is missing the point. If it feels transactional, the perpetuation of damage that occurs will be magnified.

During my aforementioned reductions, my immediate team and our affected employees needed us as leaders, and I’m glad those messages came from us. Why? Because, rightfully so, I built a team of outstanding leaders who were trusted to lead with empathy, and I believe that made a difference during those difficult times. Many good organizations prioritize employee well-being and lead with empathy, even when facing challenging business decisions with suboptimal outcomes. I wholeheartedly encourage every organization to do the same at every opportunity. Today more than ever, those that don’t will be left behind because talent wants it. Talent deserves it. And talent will find it.

Desensitization. Remember that word, please.

After nearly a decade of active duty military service right out of college, I began my corporate career in medical device sales. Specifically, I became a spine representative at the world’s largest spinal and biologics company. In that role, I would stand in the operating room during spinal surgeries for hours, directing the process flow and ensuring that the scrub tech knew which tools to have ready for the surgeon as they performed the surgical operation.

Surgical reps (medical device reps) often serve as silent contributors in surgical procedures. They are seen but not heard. While they aren’t in the room making decisions, those decisions are frequently made with them nearby. They assist in preparing all the specialized tools and implants for surgeries by ordering, sterilizing, and ensuring they arrive in the operating room on time. Their presence is essential because their company’s products are utilized during the procedure, and they possess expertise in how those products and devices are used. They are specifically trained to aid the surgeon and the surgical team, which includes nurses and surgical technicians, in navigating the procedure effectively and safely. This critical role demands exceptional leadership and communication skills, as well as patience, persistence, and a master’s level understanding of patient anatomy.

Attending a medical immersion course immediately after my military service was never something I anticipated. I had never considered becoming a doctor, shown any interest in medical careers, and had always found blood challenging, despite witnessing a few things during my time in uniform. However, through my new role right after leaving the military, where I was accepted into a competitive emerging leader development program at one of the largest and most reputable medical device manufacturers in the world, I found myself training in the cadaver lab. In the lab, we practiced spinal surgeries every day on cadavers, and upon reflection, what we accomplished in that training is remarkable. We would perform the entire spectrum of spinal surgery to correct the spinal anatomy of a human cadaver.

I met one of my best friends in that program. Like me, he was hired directly out of the military, and together we comprised half of our emerging leader cohort. We treated the medical immersion course like a boot camp; our time together became a shared bonding experience. We still laugh about our experiences in the cadaver lab and what we did as trainees, both on and off the clock. We are very similar in our career aspirations and personalities — extraordinarily competitive, emotionally intelligent, yet goofy- and when we were together, we had a reputation for causing a bit of trouble, so much so that our hiring manager asked us not to sit in adjacent cubicles. We were just a couple of military veterans fully embracing our time together in the corporate world, and we had an undeniable aura.

The main difference between us is that after graduating from the company’s medical immersion course, the first pillar of a year-long in-house rotational program, he left the program (and the company), while I stayed and learned about other aspects of the business. A career focused on patient anatomy was different from what he had imagined. For example, after leaning over a human cadaver to manipulate its spine for the first time, he passed out. In his reflection, he realized that seeing a patient’s spine fully opened was not something he was willing to desensitize himself to. Still, I commend him for completing the course and for believing in himself to recommence the post-military career search. He remains highly competitive and, as a result, extraordinarily successful!

I, on the other hand, became highly desensitized to it and thrived. I loved being in the cadaver lab, and I became so proficient there that, by the time I was in actual operating rooms roughly a year later, managing my territory comprised of trauma spine surgeons- fully qualified and eager to become one of the best- I could proficiently read the hands of the surgeon and provide real-time feedback on how to hold the tools, how to position them, and when to turn or rotate devices. In some cases, I could even advise on how many degrees to maneuver a tool in any particular direction. Looking back, I parlayed those skills into a decade-plus of medical device leadership roles, which is remarkable for a non-medical major who was more street science than science.

And that’s the larger message here: I became desensitized to it. I became desensitized to practicing spinal procedures on human cadavers. I became desensitized to seeing patients wheeled into operating rooms unconscious after life-altering traumatic events and undergoing hours-long operations to repair their anatomy. Yet even through that desensitization, I always recognized that each of those cadavers and patients had a story. I always understood their lives were affected, and I never lost sight of the fact that their loved ones’ lives were impacted as well.

You can never be too sensitive to employee well-being.

While I became desensitized to the layoffs and to reading the layoff script skillfully to those I care for deeply, I still did it. It was my job, and I had to. After experiencing numerous rounds of layoffs, it became something I had to do for various reasons. Yet the sting remains, and the concern prevails. Because, like human cadavers, patients, and the life-altering trauma that affected them, the life-altering news I delivered to my employees repeatedly also impacts so many.

A patient’s spine can be broken, healed, and strengthened. It is my sincerest hope, as a compassionate leader who believes in leading with courage and empathy, that the life-altering news I’ve delivered repeatedly to the hundreds of people I’ve impacted will also heal, rise strengthened, and enable them to live more fruitful lives in the future with their loved ones and those they support.