Layoffs.

The word makes the stomach turn, wrapping itself in knots, and causes the heart to flutter. It's one of the core aspects of business people like to avoid, operating under the guise that if ignored, it might go away.

Still, layoffs are a fact of life in business. Companies downsize, outsource, restructure, and in some unfortunate circumstances, they close. 

The founding team at eqtble is familiar with this process.

Many in the eqtble founding team came from WeWork and were members of the people analytics team when WeWork reduced their headcount from ~15,000 to less than 5000 employees.

When a company undergoes a large-scale reduction in headcount, it can be a traumatic experience for the employees asked to leave the organization.

Knowing what to do next, where to go, and how to find a new job can be challenging. Additionally, there can be a loss of morale amongst the remaining employees.

Often, employees who have lost their jobs search for reasons why, asking themselves, "Why did this happen to me?" and "What did I do wrong?" The reality is there is no single answer to these questions.

It is hard to accept that there may be no single reason for the reduction in headcount, and there may have never been a way to avoid them from happening.

Layoffs do not happen in good times when companies can take a moment to plan before making a decision. They typically occur when companies are not doing well and therefore need to make decisions quickly for fear of their business suffering.

In many cases, in the haste of this decision-making, the way companies lay off their employees can lead to unintended consequences for their businesses for years to come.

Download Ebook: Data Driven Layoffs — How to use Data and Empathy to navigate difficult layoff scenarios

I sat with Garry at Initialized Capital to talk about my experience with layoffs and if you even need to conduct them. We discussed:

1. Scaling a company from 2,000 to 15,000

2. Do You Even Need to Conduct a Layoff? —  When you're considering a layoff, first consider resetting the payscale.

3.What NOT To DO when Faced with a RIF

4. How to use Data and Empathy to navigate difficult layoff scenarios

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Data Driven Layoffs With eqtble

eqtble gives companies a single solution for collecting, organizing, and analyzing people data to make smarter decisions faster. Our platform takes data that otherwise sits unused – or worse, siloed – and integrates it, giving organizations access to 100s of metrics in one place.

This functionality shortens the processing time for data, eliminates the search for data across multiple systems, and enables the discoverability of data trends.

Additionally, organizations get access to templates, benchmarks, and an experienced team who partners with them closely to ensure organizations get the most use of their data. We believe having the right data at the right time is a critical first step in using people analytics to make the best decisions.

Want to learn more? Book a demo!