- CNN told staff Wednesday that layoffs had started. Affected employees would be notified Thursday.
- Some HR experts say advance notice is helpful. One HR expert said it can create unnecessary anxiety.
- A company's approach to layoffs can affect its ability to attract and retain talent.
CNN employees on Wednesday received a memo from the CEO saying that the company had started conducting layoffs. Anyone who was losing their job would be informed … the next day.
In the last several months, layoffs have rippled across numerous industries. Employers have taken different approaches. Elon Musk slashed half of Twitter's staff by locking them out of their work laptops. The cofounders of payments platform Stripe published a detailed memo outlining how they would support the people they were laying off.
As for Licht's decision to announce layoffs ahead of time, two HR experts told Insider that the advance notice shows compassion and transparency. Another expert said the announcement is an unnecessary source of anxiety. Their divergent reactions suggest that perhaps there isn't a great way to let employees know you're getting rid of them. Above all, the approach you settle on should take into account that, as much as this is a business issue, you're dealing with people and their livelihoods.
Advance notice of layoffs gives employees time to emotionally prepare
CNN employs 3,000 people in the US and has already let hundreds of staff go in the past several months, Insider's Claire Atkinson reported. The layoffs are part of CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery's efforts to cut costs.
In the memo, CEO Chris Licht called the process of conducting layoffs a "gut punch." He said that after notifying those employees who were losing their jobs, he would follow up with more details. Laid-off employees would receive information about severance, and anyone eligible for a bonus in 2022 would still receive one.
"I think employees appreciate advance notice that layoffs are coming," said Jaime Klein, the CEO of the human-resources consultancy Inspire HR. It gives them a chance to "emotionally prepare" for the possibility of losing their job, she added. And "if they are not personally laid off, they can be aware in order to be extra sensitive and supportive of impacted employees."
Jason Averbook, the CEO of the HR consultancy Leapgen, said the advance notice "gives people an opportunity to let things settle in" and consider how a layoff might affect them. "That's really, really important," he added, because it shows that leadership is being relatively transparent and has some empathy for employees.
Then again, the memo did not specify which areas of the organization would be affected, indicating only that a "limited number of individuals" would be let go. Ayesha Whyte, an HR executive and employment attorney at the Virginia law firm Dixon Whyte, said this is a mistake. "Just narrow it, so some people can take a breath," she said, instead of panicking about whether they'll be affected. "This is really anxiety-provoking," she added.
Employers should consider how their approach to layoffs will affect their reputation
Whyte said leaving everyone hanging for a day might backfire for CNN.
Even individuals who don't end up losing their job will "remember this feeling that now everybody has," she said. When those individuals are approached by another employer, Whyte added, they'll think about the stress that CNN's announcement caused them and think, "I see that, really when it comes down to it, you're going to look out for CNN. So maybe I should start looking out for me."
Averbook disagreed. Licht's memo is "very empathetic," he said. And when you conduct layoffs with empathy, "it's much, much easier to recover from." If you ever want to rehire some of the employees you're letting go, it helps to leave a good impression. (Averbook said that when companies conduct mass layoffs, they typically end up asking between 25% and 50% to return within a year.) "How you exit them has a big impact on whether or not they'll come back."
Layoffs done right, Averbook added, "are really a combination of empathy and economics."