“Houston, we have a problem.”
When Atlantis blasted off into orbit on July 8, its departure marked the end of NASA’s shuttle program. United Space Alliance, NASA’s contractor for maintaining the space shuttles, announced it will layoff a significant amount of employees after the shuttle safely lands.
Just how many? There are around 5,500 contracted employees and less than 1,200 civil servants working on the shuttle mission. The agency will lay off about 3,200 contractors on July 22, officials said. Cutbacks for all of NASA’s prime contractors will continue through the middle of August, leaving less than 1,000 employees.
While the layoffs don’t come as a surprise, (NASA has been planning to retire its space shuttles since as far back as 2004), they are still difficult.
At Integrity HR, we understand the difficulties that come with letting go members of an organization. Last year, we wrote about how to fire someone without losing sleep. Read that blog to learn how to conduct the termination meeting in the best possible way.
Now, we’d like to focus on the bigger picture. When letting go of experienced employees who have been with the company for many years (such as the NASA employees), it is important to show them respect. Every termination is a difficult process and there is a right and wrong way to handle it.
While following the steps in your employee handbook on how to handle termination, employers must also remember to incorporate respect and dignity into the downsizing process.
Follow these steps to downsize with dignity:
Downsizing with dignity is not only the smart, legal thing to do, but it also shows employees who survive a mass layoff that you truly care about your employees and their futures.
Be sure to lookout for our next blog about how employers should approach layoff survivors!
By having a termination policy outline in your employee handbook, you can avoid legal troubles. If your company needs assistance with creating or updating an employee handbook, facilitating terminations or dealing with any other HR related problems, please contact one of our experienced consultants. We are here to help!
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