Havey!
The Difference Between A Layoff And A Firing
By John Elder, © Dahlstrom & Company, Inc.
Let’s say I have to layoff ten percent of my staff. Who do I fire?
STOP―you’re not firing anyone, no matter how many people you lay off!
The first thing to get clear is the difference between a firing (or “termination,” as HR people like to call it) and a layoff. This is very important to get straight. Your company can get into big legal trouble if you mix them up.
The difference is that you fire people but you lay off positions.
Every position has a person in it, so what’s the difference?
There’s a big difference. When you fire Joe Slacker, your accounts receivable manager, it’s because Joe isn’t doing a good enough job, or is getting on people’s nerves. You still want an accounts receivable manager and once you get rid of Joe, you’ll try to hire a better person for the same position. So Joe was fired.
But say you have fifteen people working in your office. Revenues are way down, the company’s in danger of going under, and you have to lay off four of those people just to save the company money so it can survive. The question is, which positions (not which people) can you do without? You may eliminate one accounts receivable position because there are two of them and you think you can scrape by with one. You may decide that one person can handle both accounts receivable and purchasing, so you can eliminate one of those positions. The point is, you may end up laying off perfectly good, even excellent, employees, because you’ve decided you can survive (you hope) without someone dedicated to that position. Obviously, then, you don’t intend to find someone new to fill the position ? the whole point is to save money by doing without that position.
Yeah, but isn’t that the perfect time to get rid of Joe Slacker anyway?
Not so fast, Rambo. When you fire someone, legally you have to have good cause, and that can be challenged in court, if the employee you fired feels strongly enough that you didn’t have good cause. There is no such requirement during a layoff. The law recognizes that a company may have to shed employees in order to survive ? employees who haven’t done anything wrong. In return for letting companies lay off employees who don’t deserve to lose their jobs, the law requires that the choices be made strictly for business survival reasons.
Obviously, there’s no mathematical formula to tell you which positions to keep and which to eliminate, so it is possible to lay off employees who are performing poorly, at least some of them. But only if you can make the case that the company can do without anyone in that position. You can get rid of Joe Slacker during your layoff, but you can’t turn around and hire another accounts receivable manager to do the job right.
Think of the difference between spring cleaning and moving from a house into an apartment. Spring cleaning is like firing. You can get rid of a couch you don’t like and then buy a new one. Moving from a house into an apartment is more like a layoff. You simply can’t have all those things any more ? there isn’t room. You have to decide what you can live without. If there’s no room in the apartment for a couch, you get rid of your couch, even if it’s your favorite couch.
Here’s another way to look at it. Say you’re the captain of a ship. You’ve got two excellent pilots and one doctor who’s only mediocre. While you’re in port, you can fire that doctor and hire another one. But if you’re out at sea in a storm, and can only fit two of your crew into the lifeboat, you lay off one of the pilots and keep the doctor. Considered as positions rather than as individuals, one pilot out of two is expendable, but the one-and-only doctor is not.
Is this the same thing as a reduction in force?
Official announcements will often refer to a “reduction in force” (or “RIF”) rather than to a “layoff.” Strictly speaking, a reduction in force is defined as the elimination of permanent positions due to a lack of work or lack of need (for example, if the company is discontinuing a product or service), while a “layoff” is defined as the temporary elimination of positions which are likely to be filled again, such as members of a stage crew between productions.
However, “layoff” is the commonly used word these days for a reduction in force, and people may even feel that it sounds pompous or evasive to call it a “reduction in force.” However, it’s advisable to use the term “reduction in force” (or “RIF”) in any written documents, just to be sure that there’s no confusion in case of legal action. (You can always explain to your readers why you’re using the pompous official terminology.)
Can you find the difference between fire and lay off ?
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at your age....
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What a welfare for you.
