After Running Layoffs, an HR Professional Found Himself on the List

By Tom Whitfield

About a month and a half after helping a media startup cut staff, Bobby Powers learned at a learning and development conference in Las Vegas that his own job appeared on the next layoff list. Business Insider published the as-told-to account, edited for brevity and clarity, and said it verified his prior employment and subsequent layoff.

Powers, 39, now works as a leadership coach in Seattle. His account offers one worker’s operational testimony, not a survey, legal standard or broad measure of layoffs; its value lies in the sequence of choices behind a workforce cut.

What did the budget process involve?

His boss said the two of them would run a large layoff and coordinate with the executive team on who would lose their jobs. Because Powers and his boss knew the affected people closely, each day brought a fresh reckoning over who appeared on the list and who did not.

The cuts included people doing great work. The aim was to remove enough positions to avoid another layoff, but updated budget projections kept changing the target; when revenue projections fell, the company needed deeper reductions. The back-and-forth centered on where the business needed people most.

Powers described the work as “soul-crushing.” He said the process involved “putting humans in a spreadsheet,” and that it did not feel great. The reconciliation between financial targets and individual lives sat at the center of the process.

Takeaway: Strong performance did not protect employees when the employer needed deeper cuts, and budget revisions can change the selection before anyone leaves.

How did the team preserve humanity?

Powers and his boss tried to preserve humanity by asking how they would want the same process done for themselves. They also considered examples of companies they had heard handle layoffs poorly, which turned communication details into consequential choices rather than routine administration.

Every detail became a dilemma, especially how long affected employees would have to say goodbye. They scripted calls almost to the minute, arranged simultaneous calls and planned when to send a companywide email.

The questions they worked through included:

• Who made each call, and when it would occur.
• When the companywide email would be sent.
• When to deactivate Slack and work email.
• Whether employees had each other’s cellphone numbers and could contact colleagues.
• Whether employees had personal email, were connected on LinkedIn and could say goodbye to friends.
• What to call the meeting, what to do if someone could not be reached, and how to proceed if an employee declined the invite because of a conflict.

Without a major security concern, the team wanted to give employees at least a little time to message colleagues and friends and thank them for the time together. Powers also said employers could not give too much time; granting none while immediately withdrawing access felt inhumane.

Because the company was remote, the vast majority of layoff calls were video calls, chosen to retain a human touch. The format did not remove the hardest conversations: Powers knew some employees had financial struggles or had recently bought a house, so he understood what they faced on the other side of the call.

Takeaway: Farewell time, communication channels and the timing of access cutoffs require explicit decisions because one execution can feel humane and another abrupt.

How did Powers end up on the next list?

Work returned to normal soon after the first layoffs. Powers received a promotion and was earning more than ever, yet about a month and a half later he was taking notes at a learning and development conference in Las Vegas when his boss called.

His boss said the company was doing another layoff and that, rather than holding those conversations with other people, Powers was “on the chopping block.” He felt partially floored and partly normal.

On the morning of the layoffs, Powers checked whether a companywide blast had gone out but could not access his email. The company had already withdrawn his access, leaving him unable to contact colleagues and say goodbye, the same farewell he had tried to protect for others.

Takeaway: A manager can help design a considerate layoff process and still face its sharpest edge when access ends before the employee can respond.

What does the account teach HR leaders?

Before running the process, Powers had assumed layoffs mainly removed low performers. Seeing the company select capable people because of financial and organizational needs changed that view, and experiencing the process from both sides gave him greater empathy for the judgment employees face.

He now says he no longer jumps to the same conclusions when he sees layoffs posted online. The account does not establish why any individual employee was selected or whether another employer would make the same choices.

The source supplies no company name, total reduction, severance terms, selection formula, jurisdiction or legal analysis. It therefore cannot show common practice or determine compliance, but it documents concrete process questions employers should resolve before access and communications begin.

Those choices should cover selection under changing forecasts, ownership of calls, timing of simultaneous notifications, companywide email, access cutoffs, permitted farewell channels and exceptions for unreachable employees. The source does not supply universal answers, so employers should not treat one script as sufficient for every reduction.

Takeaway: As budgets move, employers should document communication, access and exception rules in advance, because an improvised reduction can undo the humanity the HR team intended.