With the changes in the external environment, waves of layoffs have come one after another, and the HR of various enterprises has become the busiest group of people:
"Our department wants to lay off two people, how can the HR side sneak around, there is no warning at all?" "There are just 7 processes that have come to us (administrative management positions), and today is the last resignation day, and there was no news from the personnel side before. Two weeks before the Spring Festival, in a community dominated by Internet practitioners, several group members chatted about the layoff stories that happened around them. Ma Ying, who has ten years of experience in HR in Internet companies, is also a member of this community, and seeing that HR on the front line of conflict has become the protagonist of the discussion among group friends, he thought about it and simply posted in the group: "The HR department is like this." ”
During his career, about 1,000 employees were laid off through his hands. Some of them belong to "regular layoffs", that is, they have low performance scores and are judged to be incompetent for their current jobs and have no suitable place to transfer, while the other part is affected by factors such as the adjustment of the company's business strategy and are classified as mass layoffs. He undergoes massive layoffs almost every year, and more than 100 employees have been laid off at a time from his line.
"Some companies have been operating better before, and expanding new business lines to explore new growth points is also a defensive deployment for competitors, but it can't actually contribute much direct value. There are also some old business lines that have been proven to be unable to bring more advantages in the next competitive environment, and have existed for a long time, and the redundancy is obvious. Ma Ying told me that these two types of business lines are often the first choice for large Internet companies to "survive with broken arms" when they are in poor financial condition, and when the entire business line is eliminated, usually only a handful of business line executives, or very powerful "related customers", can get internal transfer opportunities.
For a modern enterprise, it is still the basic logic to expand recruitment during the upward period of business and reduce the number of personnel during the downward period. Today, in the "big factories" that have encountered a bottleneck period of development, batch layoffs have also developed into a "collectivization" operation of division of labor. However, Ma Ying told me: "Unlike what many people think, the HR of our Internet companies usually does not have much say in the matter of layoffs, and is basically the role of the executor. ”
Several of the companies he has worked for are all leading companies in the Internet industry segment, and the process of mass layoffs is basically similar - the board of directors and senior executives are usually the initiators of layoffs, and will decide whether to adjust the pace of operation through layoffs in the face of past business conditions and future market expectations. After receiving the "instruction" of mass layoffs, the head of the finance department agreed with the senior management on the "money" related decisions according to the overall financial plan for the future, that is, how much money needs to be saved in the future through downsizing and layoffs, and how much financial cost is willing to be spent on this round of layoffs.
The HR department often joins the "redundancy team" after this, where the person in charge is informed of the almost established overall layoff target and works with management to develop a specific layoff plan. "At this time, it will not be detailed to the individual, but mainly to the business line and position, which is why an employee will hardly be removed after being on the bulk layoff list. Ma Ying analysis, from the perspective of the decision-making level, they cut the position, not the specific person, "the post is gone, where do people go?"
Of course, not all HR departments are passive partners in redundancy plans. "In our industry, HR has a much stronger voice than pure Internet companies. David, who works for a large company with a traditional industry background, told me that for example, the overall number of layoffs and the cost of layoffs "are all formed by the organizational development line and salary line within human resources, and then report to the boss after being confirmed by the person in charge."
He shared that he experienced the last round of large-scale layoffs, which was caused by the boss and the HR leader agreeing that the middle office support department was redundant and the "support ratio" (how many front office business personnel a middle office person can support) was not satisfactory. "We planned for more than a year in advance for that round of layoffs, first selecting a department that could be replaced, and using a long cycle to test our hypothesis. A year later, David and his colleagues confirmed their suspicions: "The business support provided by this department of more than 300 people is basically transactional work. At the beginning, the company's online degree was not high, and the process and business data processing work had to be handed over to this department for execution, and after verification, we found that most of these can be replaced by process tools, big data and AI. ”
New smart tools are being used in business operations, and as efficiency improves, employees become redundant and the time comes for layoffs. However, it has become the internal consensus of most enterprises that people in the know try to remain silent and avoid unnecessary troubles caused by the spread of news. On the eve of the "war of layoffs", many employees who will be affected are still unconsciously working according to the company's production plan.
Ma Ying's current professional identity is more accurately expressed as an HRBP (Human Resource Business Partner, that is, human resources business partner), he regards himself as the "interface" between the human resources department and the specific business line, assigned by the human resources management department to the specific business department, and uses professional knowledge and skills to serve the development of the corresponding business line, "how to set up a department and a reasonable subordinate structure, what kind of talent allocation is needed, How to make the people in the department better deliver the work and so on, are all things that we need to consider."
In large enterprises that are common in China, an HRBP will generally provide services to 100 to 200 employees, and this number can rise to 300 or even more in mature business sectors. As a veteran who has been in the industry for many years, Ma Ying knows all the employees in his service department, "This is my job, and the leaders of the department will probably not know as much as I do."
Ma Ying describes himself as more like a "game maker", trying to coordinate the company's decision-making, departmental interests and employee demands to help everyone establish effective communication. But the balance he struggles to maintain can be easily destroyed at some point, and layoffs, especially mass layoffs, are the most typical scenario of this.
Before the "layoff campaign" began, the first "opponent" Ma Ying faced was the decision-makers of the department he served. Just like Wang Xiaobo's hapless messenger to Khorezm, he has to take the job elimination plan and the overall salary reduction request that has been "decided by his superiors", find the "king" of the business department to accept the anger, and quickly appease the "king", and work with him to make a precise decision: which "soldiers" to erase from his business territory.
At this point, most of the line-of-business "No. 1" will calm down quickly, and they will usually have some sense of their team's situation. David also encountered some special situations, a business line leader who foresaw the content of the conversation was at the dinner table communicating with the company's boss, "at the beginning 'blew' a pound of liquor, sat there and began to sleep, and the two of them did not negotiate." The delaying tactics paid off, and the layoff talk was put on hold for nearly half a year, during which time the performance of the business line leader's segment improved, and some employees were eventually retained compared to the original layoff plan.
"The main reason is that the company's business situation at that time was okay, and it could afford to drag it out, otherwise the boss would not have left such space. In David's view, this kind of situation is not common, and a scheduled layoff will inevitably occur, at this time, HRBP, as the "tactical staff" of the head of the business line, must adjust its mentality in time and devote itself to this "battle".
Based on his own understanding of specific employees, Maying has to assist the head of the business line in formulating the final layoff list, "Sometimes there is a certain degree of subjectivity. People who have a lot of intersections with leaders and are close to them are often taken care of intentionally or unintentionally, and those who have differences and conflicts will be prioritized in the list. We're all human beings, and it's hard to avoid that." When encountering unreasonable arrangements, he will stand from a relatively neutral perspective and admonish the "No. 1 position" of the business, "but in fact, it is still the other party who makes the decision, I may say it twice at most, and if I don't listen, there is no way." We are just observers, outputting what we see and making everyone as understanding each other as possible."
Mawin will also carry out some "tactical design" for the head of the business line: "In a layoff, we believe that what is cut is the number of positions. If a lot of people are in the same position, and the redundancy target is to cut half of these positions, but there is no requirement for the salary space of the redundant, we may recommend that the person with a higher rank and higher salary be retained." This is to leave a "spark" for the business line, because after the layoff, it becomes more difficult to get new similar positions in the company, "keep these expensive 'pits', and when you budget for the next year, the salary space of the business line will be larger, and the recruitment will be more relaxed."
Once the list is finalized, the conversation with the layoffs will go full throttle. At this time, HRBP becomes the head wave of the tide slapping against the cliff - as a representative of the company's interests, telling the news of the layoffs of employees he is familiar with, and guiding them to accept the layoff plan formulated by the company.
Although the companies they work for are on different "tracks", Ma Ying and David share the same opinion, as HRBP, there are only two goals at this stage: one is not to have "extreme risks", and the other is to end the battle as quickly as possible and get employees to sign off on the plan.
No "extreme risk" is a basic requirement for David's company to assess HRBP. In this company's definition, "extreme risk" includes not only mass incidents caused by layoffs and Internet public opinion risks, but also plan overtime and large compensation for individual employees. An excessively long layoff cycle will be regarded as a direct management risk by the top management, and the possibility of derivative risks will also be implied. Therefore, as soon as the news of layoffs began to spread, "blitzkrieg" became almost the only option.
"Sometimes, if you know in advance that an employee is going to cause trouble in the company, you can contact the security and legal counsel in advance and deal with it quickly and without impact, which may be seen as a positive work outcome. If you don't notice it at all and are caught off guard, it's basically over, and no matter how well you do other work this year, you basically can't run back to the bottom of the performance. "In the company where David works, at such a critical juncture, the last performance on his back often means that he is on the verge of being laid off.
In order to move forward properly and efficiently, David will start designing a communication strategy before the layoff list is officially finalized. According to his experience, it is necessary to "stratify" the department that carries out the layoffs, but he is reluctant to dismantle the mystery in detail, only telling me that if the entire department "huddles" and refuses to accept the company's layoff conditions, the progress of the whole work will be very slow.
In the past several batch layoffs, Ma Ying was basically "the fastest and most secure person to complete the layoff task" every time. He summed up his work process: before interviewing an employee, he should first ask the other party's leader to do some preliminary research, "to see what the working group of this person is doing recently, and whether it is possible to get the news of layoffs in advance." In addition, he will first look for opportunities to calibrate his impression of the "personality and communication style" of the negotiator, and adjust his way of speaking according to different character characteristics.
"The idea of each HR conversation is different, in addition to giving some emotional care, I basically repeat the determined words, and it is impossible to say more about some key points, so as not to cause risks. This kind of unified discourse is usually decided by the "layoff team", including the reasons for layoffs, compensation methods, etc., Ma Ying insisted: "Let everyone hear the same thing, and if there are differences, it will cause more trouble." ”
Before the layoff communication, he will bring the person in charge of the business together to conduct an on-site simulation, especially for those who have the impression that communication is relatively difficult, and rehearse all the troublesome situations that may be encountered. "Fundamentally, the resignation negotiation is to do a good job of expectation management, so that the other party understands that it is useless to procrastinate, sign early, get the money early, and get rid of it early. In order to achieve this goal, during the formal conversation, Ma Ying will also call the interlocutor's "+2 leader" (that is, the direct leader of the interlocutor), "Generally speaking, the '+2 leader' has a certain distance from the employee and can play the role of a town." Some employees may be forced to restrain their emotions due to the coercion brought about by this rank difference."
During the interview, Ma Ying insisted that he "cannot express any emotional resonance or sympathy positively". However, he will leave this emotionally caring role to the direct leadership of the laid-off employees, "who usually do not have the power to directly decide on the layoff list and do not affect the overall situation." You can give these 'squad leaders' a little space and say goodbye to their 'soldiers'."
David shared with me the stories of several of his peers who have encountered them at other companies. In some native Internet companies, HR can negotiate more efficiently, and when encountering a "bunker" that is difficult to promote, there is no need to grind hard like him every day, and can directly call for "heavy weapon" support. "Their legal department has a more detailed division of labor, there are special personnel to solve the legal problems in the event of layoffs, and the 'employee relations position' of the human resources department is also more mature. ”
This kind of "employee relations team" has rich experience in dealing with labor arbitration, and once the dismissal is transferred to them, there is a special person to collect evidence that the employee is unable to perform his or her duties normally, "for example, looking at your clock-in records, the work evaluation of each assessment point, and even the environmental impact assessment of other departments, etc., can always find some flaws." Other disposition procedures will also be initiated at the same time, such as separating the employee from his or her job position, including restricting office privileges, emptying to-do tasks, etc., resulting in a de facto "failure to perform duties". "I've heard a more extreme story about how a few people from the 'employee relations post' chased the retrenched person in the work area to grab the office computer. David added.
In Ma Ying's memory, when an employee learns that he is about to be laid off, he usually has three typical reactions: one is to sign more smoothly, another will ask to wait a few days before making a decision, and some will show more intense emotions on the spot.
"Some people will refuse to communicate outright, some people will be angry, and some people will just cry. Ma Ying has seen a lot of tears, and sometimes the other party does not want to achieve any purpose by this, "The old employees who have served for more than ten years naturally have feelings for this company and reluctance to themselves in the past few years, and they signed the words while crying, and then walked out quietly."
Over the years of work, Ma Ying has been scolded by emotional employees for "ugly words", and when the friction intensifies, some people want to beat him up, "Those few times, the other party is the only breadwinner of the family." However, everyone knows that this means a legal cost, and in the end they can still restrain themselves." These "bunkers" are not difficult to overcome in Ma Ying's view, but the most headache for him is those who are "non-violent and non-cooperative": "They don't make trouble, they don't sign, it's basically a state of self-closure, some people come to clock in every day, and then people don't know where to go, and come back when they get off work." ”
Some people "fantasize about dragging a mop to carry this round of layoffs", but in Maying's experience, as long as an employee is on the list of layoffs, there is almost no possibility of being taken down. "I've only seen two exceptions, one is when someone is found to be a relative of the boss or the superior supervisory leader, or if the company has been saved at a critical moment, so that the company's management may be saved directly. But this kind of person is generally not on the list, because people with backgrounds, we usually know it." Another situation is the "three-period" personnel, that is, pregnancy, maternity leave, lactation, "I encountered a more extreme situation, once I just told a female employee that she wanted to lay off employees, she immediately took out a pregnancy certificate, which is no longer possible."
Others want to use the "delay" strategy to get more compensation. Ma Ying encountered a case where the other party refused to sign "hysterically" at first, and directly said that he wanted more compensation. "I told him that it was impossible to give, and he said to go back and think about it. After three days, I asked him how he thought about it, and he said that he had thought about it, and then he came or didn't sign. After more than a week, I said that I had thought about it, but I still didn't sign it. Tossed back and forth many times. After a period of time, the rest of the layoffs signed and left one after another, and Ma Ying's company lowered the severance compensation for this employee, "He may see that there is really no more benefit to be made in the delay, so he came to sign."
The different reactions of the interviewees usually have a direct impact on David's communication mentality. "Some people come up and scold and be arrogant, so I don't want to say a word. If you want to fight me, then I will definitely not coax me. They are unlikely to gain anything from procrastination. Sometimes when he meets a negotiation partner who opens his mouth to "spray dirty", he will also think with emotion: "I don't want to give you a penny!" When he meets a person who can communicate rationally, David is also willing to show his sincerity: "Generally, in addition to saying those few sentences of 'prescribed words', I will directly tell the other party that my appeal is for you to sign, what can I give you, and what I have obtained for you extra." ”
Although their work experiences are very different, both David and Ma Ying will strive to retain some individual warmth in the process of layoffs, which Ma Ying calls "warm rationality". Some of his peers will find out some problems in the work of the laid-off target in advance, such as performance, environmental impact assessment, etc., and guide the other party to blame themselves for the reasons for the layoff, "This method often works, but I don't do it, but try to make them feel that it is their responsibility."
David will also give some help within his ability depending on the situation, "Sometimes the other party will tell me about some of his achievements at work, or some difficulties at home, such as just buying a house, a family member is seriously ill, etc." As long as the other party is calm and rational in communication, he will try to help the other party gain more space within the scope of his authority, for example, postpone the deadline for resignation by half a month. Although this is limited, he also wants to give the other party some humanistic care.
"Actually, in my heart, I feel that the other party is on the right side. David added slowly, "Because you know that the person across from you may have done nothing wrong at all." ”
In fact, Ma Ying and David are not graduates of human resource management, and the reason for choosing their current job is "to like to have a concrete connection with people". However, the "connection" they crave will also be transformed into a psychological burden that is difficult to dissolve in the wave of layoffs.
In order to better promote the work, Ma Ying will maintain a close relationship with colleagues in the department he serves, and even develop good personal relationships. "I usually get close to people, and sometimes I talk to them about performance and business development, and I will definitely give them confidence, mainly encouragement, and then suddenly they say that they want to lay you off. Ma Ying felt that he was like a "scumbag" at this time, "gave a lot of promises when he was in love, and then suddenly said one day that he wanted to break up".
Sometimes, employees who have a better relationship with Mawin are told about layoffs and give more intense feedback. He understands where this negativity comes from: "On the one hand, it is more emotionally difficult to accept, and on the other hand, if you think about it, you know that you are going to lay off employees long in advance, why don't you pretend that there is no sign at all, why don't you give a hint in advance?"
Some people think that Ma Ying violates the loyalty between friends, and some people directly call him "the boss's lackey". In the face of such accusations, he also felt uncomfortable at first, but after a long time, he gradually became calm: "They are right. If I accept this from my heart, it will not be possible for others to hurt me if they say it again. Having said that, in the event of a large-scale layoff plan, he will still control the number of people he communicates with a day to a maximum of about 10 people, and he can't arrange it too full, leaving room for himself to regulate his emotions.
David is recognized as the "most emotionally stable kind of person" in the company, and he feels that he does not have excessive mood swings when laying off employees, and can solve problems more rationally and focusedly. But reason can't counteract all the dark emotions, especially when it comes to mass layoffs. Many people's departure has nothing to do with their own work ability, "I know that there are a group of people who are quite good, and this way is actually very unfair", there are "hard-working people" who rationally confide in David about their dissatisfaction, although he can switch his mentality quickly, but also find that he will be constantly disturbed by negative emotions, "sometimes I want to leave when I cut myself".
There are too many things to be measured by right or wrong, and he talked to me about the story of the company that laid off more than 300 people after applying smart tools at the beginning, "It's hard to say who is at fault, from the perspective of business owners, the pursuit of profit is what they should do, they are responsible for investors, including shareholders, and they are also responsible for all employees, including themselves." Is that a matter of technological progress? When the Jenny spinning machine came along, it was obviously ridiculous that you smashed it."
Sleeping, eating, and drinking, this is a way that David often uses to relieve his heart, "When I encounter any problems that I can't get over, when I am in a particularly bad state, I sleep until noon the next day, and it is basically solved." He's glad he didn't lose sleep when he was at his most stressed. But Ma Ying was not so lucky, the first time he experienced batch layoffs was less than a year after he joined the work, "the first test is to accept this matter in my heart." He slept only about 10 hours that week, "sometimes he fell asleep at 5 o'clock in the morning, and woke up again at 7 or 8 o'clock; for two or three days he didn't fall asleep for a second, and when he was tired, he would go downstairs and walk and blow a cold wind."
Ma Ying is very sensitive to external emotions, and he must forcibly close his emotional tentacles and implement layoffs as an absolutely rational work goal. But in recent years, he has gradually been able to better relieve the "guilt" in his heart: "On the one hand, he is getting older, he has seen a lot, and his skin is thicker; on the other hand, everyone's views on layoffs are also changing, and they no longer regard layoffs as a small probability event, all companies are laying off employees, and many people do not regard long-term stay in the company as a rigid expectation."
But he still feels heartfelt at some times, "Cutting an old fritter in the workplace and laying off a person who is very simple in his profession is very different for me." A few years ago, Maying interviewed three outstanding fresh graduates, and the resumes and abilities of these three people are enough to support them to get more and better job offers, "but the other party is for our company's brand, and it is a deep user of our products." Every time we communicate, you can see the light in their eyes."
Half a year after the three newcomers joined the company, Ma Ying had to lay off two of them. In the course of the layoff conversation, he repeated the established set of words, and then watched the light in the other party's eyes "dim little by little". The two people who were laid off didn't struggle too much, signed quietly, and then silently sorted out their things and left. The only girl who was left behind, "seems to be waiting to be laid off every day, occasionally I see her wanting to ask you about it, and some of them come over and say something, but then they want to stop talking, and they can't take the initiative to speak."
This fear-like emotion lasted for about two months before it slowly subsided, and the girl stayed in the original department and did a good job, but when Ma Ying communicated with her again, he felt: "This person's first simple yearning and love for the company's brand has gradually disappeared, and he has become a more mature worker." ”
In the matter of layoffs, Ma Ying and David both believe that the company and management, as the employer, should bear the primary responsibility. "Because when you're hiring people, you're actually taking more value. Although employers also bear certain risks, the risk tolerance and risk-return of both parties are not equal. Ma Ying bluntly said that many times the hired person is "paying for the boss's wrong decision".
Interview and Writing by Sean Guo Edited by Yang Yuchi Midjourney Picture Late Fish Carp