We Fixed It, You're Welcome - Rethinking Corporate Downsizing Strategies

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

In this episode of "We Fixed It, You're Welcome" the panel tackles the pressing issue of mass layoffs sweeping across industries. Joined by Christina Sacco from Produs Global, the discussion explores the complexities of workforce reductions. The conversation delves into the fiscal realities driving layoffs, the importance of strategic planning, and the human impact on both departing and remaining employees. The panel offers insights on maintaining company culture, effective communication strategies, and the potential long-term consequences of mishandled layoffs. While acknowledging that layoffs are an enduring business practice, the episode provides valuable perspectives on executing workforce reductions more humanely and strategically. https://protisglobal.com/Current Landscape of Mass Layoffs Overview of recent layoffs at major companies like Intel, FedEx, Neiman Marcus, and others. Discussion on whether this is a recurring cycle or uncharted territory. Recruitment and Talent Acquisition Perspective Christina and Chino share insights on the evolving job market pre-COVID, during COVID, and post-COVID. Analysis of hiring trends, salary expectations, and candidate availability. Strategic Workforce Planning Christina emphasizes the importance of balancing full-time staff with specialized contract workers. Discussion on avoiding redundancies and maintaining operational efficiency. Corporate Responsibility in Layoffs Melissa highlights the need for transparency, mindful execution, and ethical considerations. Importance of clear communication and supporting remaining employees. Financial Perspective on Layoffs Sam discusses the immediate cost reduction, boost in shareholder value, and operational efficiency. Analysis of layoffs as a strategic realignment opportunity. Impact on Company Culture and Employer Branding Christina emphasizes the importance of hiring aligned with company values. Discussion on rebuilding trust and morale after layoffs. Humane Approach to Layoffs Chino advocates for more empathetic and supportive layoff processes. Suggestions for extending benefits, connecting laid-off employees with recruiters, and maintaining dignity. Employee Responsibility and Career Management Melissa and Sam discuss the importance of employees regularly assessing their market value. Debate on the pros and cons of "shopping around" for job offers. Future Implications of Mass Layoffs Aaron predicts the rise of challenger brands formed by laid-off talent. Discussion on the potential long-term consequences for companies conducting mass layoffs. Balancing Business Needs with Human Considerations Panel agrees on the necessity of layoffs in some cases but emphasizes the need for strategic and humane execution. Importance of preserving core capabilities and maintaining employee trust. __________________ Disclaimer: A quick disclaimer. We are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kinds of questions everyone's thinking. Have an engaging conversation and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you're welcome. All trademarks, IP and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. Music by Milo W.Produced by Straight Forward Media Group See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, here's how this works. In each episode, we pick a company we all know that has something going on right now. Then we put ourselves in charge and see if we can fix it. You'll be hearing from Melissa and Operations, Chino on people in culture, and me on marketing. My name's Aaron. As always, a quick disclaimer, we are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kinds of questions everyone's thinking, have an engaging conversation, and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you're welcome.

All trademarks, IP, and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. Welcome back to We Fixed It, you're welcome. If you've listened to recent episodes or even from the beginning, you know that every show we do is a whole new topic. Sometimes it's on the lighter side and sometimes the very fabric of our society is at stake. No big deal. Today we're tackling the pressing issue of mass layoffs, including those just announced this past week. We'll be talking about this wave of companies undergoing mass layoffs, though there's certainly similar ripple effects across government agencies, academic institutions, and other areas. But we know companies the best, so that's where we'll center our discussion.

We are your fearless fixers, your panelists, Chino, Melissa, and myself. And we're joined again by Sam Palazolo from Tip of the Spear Ventures and first-time guest Christina Sacco, vice president of marketing from Protis Global. Protis does recruitment and talon acquisition primarily for CPG, so consumer product companies, food and beverage and other areas. And Christina, tell us more about that and take a moment to introduce yourself. Thank you. I'm Christina Sacco. I'm the head of marketing for Protis Global. And we've been in business.

This is our 30th year. Our company has built the teams for Diageo, Hostess, Red Bull, North America, White Claw. So we've been in. in the space for such a long time that we have deeply entrenched relationships. And really at the core of what we do is our North Star, which is building companies and changing lives. So we believe that every placement has a ripple effect, not just for the candidate. You know, they've going on to their next dream job, but also for the companies that we're helping build the team. It helps take them to the next level.

So very, very relevant for the situation we're in today. So great to have you here, Christina. and Sam, remind our listeners who you are. Hi, I'm Sam Pelazolo. I'm managing director at Tip of the Speer Ventures. We're a family office. I'm based in Manhattan, New York City. We do a couple of different things today.

I'm ex-Dloit. I help businesses scale, scale from $1 to $10 million to over a billion dollars. So looking forward to today's participation from a financial perspective. I'm keyed in, by the way, on four items today. Okay. We'll look forward to that. Great. Thanks, Sam.

Great, as always, to have you back. We always like to stack the deck in our favor. So thanks to the two of you for joining us today because we're here to talk about the mass layoff epidemic that's been sweeping the nation. Usually we drill down to one company and we try to fix it. But that's pretty impossible to do in this case. It's just so everywhere widespread. So we're going to see if we can fix this whole situation one way or another. If we look back to January of this past year,

Nearly 50,000 jobs were eliminated at U.S. companies, according to a February 6th report from Challenger Gray and Christmas. It seems that job cuts are everywhere. This actually was the lowest January job cut total in three years, but it was a 28% jump from the number of job cuts that happened in December. But since January, we've been hearing about a workforce reduction at one company after another after another. So you got Intel, FedEx, Neiman Marcus, our friends at Walgreens from a previous episode, our friends at Starbucks from our previous episode, HP, Workday, Salesforce, Southwest Airlines, Meta, Chevron, Disney was recently announced

cutting another 200 or so jobs. If we get into CPG, we have PepsiCo, closing manufacturing plants and cutting more jobs, and the list keeps growing and growing. So I want to open it up to everyone. Let's get into it. What are we seeing here? Is this a recurring cycle that we all kind of forgot about

or is this uncharted territory? And will things stabilize soon and go back into growth mode, or is this just the beginning? He wants to start. If I start. Well, it's interesting, too, because I think both Christina and I have a different lens coming from, like, the recruitment and talent space, where, you know, when we look at this year alone, and it's only March 7th when we're recording this. So this short time, but, you know, we have to kind of go back a little bit into the history and talk about the cycles of recruitment and kind of how it's been happening. because if you look before during like pre-COVID, right, it was an insane candidate market.

You would post a job. It was almost impossible to find somebody because maybe three or four people would apply. It was really the candidate market where you're seeing salaries, insane levels, very hard to find great people. COVID happens. Obviously, there were a lot of layoffs or furloughs. and, you know, that in the beginning part of 2020, really messed up the market because no one knew what to do. So there was a lot of pausing, hiring freezes, and layoffs as well. But if you kind of check back into kind of July of 2020, kind of that midtime when we're all under lockdown,

but people started figuring out how to work remotely, hiring started happening again. You weren't seeing the insane salaries and ask that you, you did just a year before. What you were looking for is people who were kind of just desperate to have a job and they were happy to be working remotely, which was great. And that kind of took us until about 2020, 2021, 2022. And then again, you have that next flip of, okay, everyone kind of figured out how to work remotely in this kind of COVID situation, allowed for more global access of talent. And then, again, you had another boom of talent market where it was very hard. Everybody

was hiring again. It was exciting for recruiters. It was like you couldn't stop bringing in the searches. And then, you know, fast forward to 2023 and things started halting. And we started to see more and more of these layoffs. You know, it started small. It was quiet. And then it grew into kind of these huge companies like you've mentioned, Aaron, mass layoffs, mass layoffs, mass layoffs, mass layoffs. And it's kind of what you've continued to hear since then. But 2025 has been interested. because in light of all of these huge mass layoffs that you've heard, there's been quiet hiring happening in the background. So it's a very interesting time. And Christina, I'm excited to kind of hear your perspective, too, as a fellow recruiter in this business, because we get some inside scoops

that most people don't get. So I'd love to get your take here, too. Yeah. So everything you said, we've seen. Because we're specifically focused on CPG, we're, we've been a. We've been a affected by these ebbs and flows, everything you talked about. But, you know, we decided long ago that we would be advisors and partners. And what we saw, especially like on the IT side, the gig economy, you know, there was some overhiring happening, which, you know, sometimes it's hard for people or for companies to anticipate, like, you know, you're saying things were going crazy. I mean, you think about during the pandemic what was happening, like people couldn't keep up with production, needed more people. But also, you know, there is, like you said, a lot of

other things happening in the background. And I would just want to talk about like the modern workforce. So I think companies haven't quite caught up. And we're living in a world now where it used to be like full time or part time. Now, especially I think through the pandemic, it has accelerated all these different ways to go into the workforce. So when you look at your total workforce, You want to think about it as a pie. So if a company is strategic enough, they can hire accordingly where they can avoid these types of layoffs. So for instance, you've got, I would never recommend a five-year plan anymore because it's going to be out the window. But you should have some strategy of where you're heading.

So if you know, like, okay, we need these things happening. These are the priority. We need this X amount full-time staff. But there's these projects that we need. Like, we need to build out. this infrastructure and HR. We need to build out some more technology on the marketing side. You can bring in interim fractional contract where they're specialized. They're really good at what they do. They're in for the project-based work. And then you don't really need them. You just

have the staff that you have full time to keep it running and maintained. So if you look at your workforce that way and you look at how you're building out your business, you can avoid these mass layoffs because I think what happened is they built in too much redundancy. You know, you don't need 10 people in this one region, let's say, in sales. Maybe you could do this thing with five. I love that, Christina, because I think that that actually lends into areas that I would want to talk about when we talk about rifts and layoffs is around corporate responsibility. And because Sam is always so organized, I'm going to tell you, I have four points on this.

And I'm going to give you a softball, Sam, because my fourth point is really your point. So really around corporate responsibility and strategic planet. So to your point, do we really understand what the business ecosystem is today, what our customers need, how we can do this, and what tools we have available for our teams to be able to be very efficient and operate in a way that makes sense? So transparency, mindful execution, and all the ethical considerations that go with reductions in force. Now, we also need to be mindful of our team members and how we're laying them off, right? This has become one of those things where you're getting a ding on your phone at 4 a.m.

saying you have a meeting with someone from HR that you don't even know, right? And everybody's full panic mode, right? Yeah. So really, you know, the dignity, respect, mental health support, clear communications. Like, if somebody puts a one-on-one on my calendar now, you're afraid, right? So, like, now we have to go back and think about how do we communicate with our teams. How do we set up this, you know, rebuild this trust? And then the impact on all those folks that are remaining, right?

We've talked about survivor built before, but you have to address morale. You have to rebuild trust. This gets back to brands, Aaron. We'll be talking about that. And avoid overburdening the folks that are. left, right? And they're in full panic mode, right? And they've got survivor skill, they've got PTSD, they have all those things. But from a business and operational perspective, and this is where I really want Sam to kind of dive in deep, is are layoffs really a fiscal tool or are you really

trimming fat? Because I think in the past there was this idea around redundancy and things like that. but what I'm hearing now is like we're trying to boost our profits or deep it up right right and so we have to make we have to you know we have the board meeting coming up so we've got to get rid of some you know some expenses here and the number one expense in any company is their team the resources and payroll so layoffs can artificially inflate that and so I'd love to hear, you know, Sam, your perspective about what is really driving these? Is it really that the businesses are failing and flailing? And some of them are. We know we've talked about some of those together. Or is it really, you know, more genuinely to improve the business because there are, redundancies in the process? So Sam, from a fiscal perspective, what are your thoughts? Yeah, you bring up a great point. Let me back up in order to go forward. I am the product of a layoff.

I put my way through undergrad working as a UAW member on an assembly line. I was approaching that difficult decision at graduation of, do I stay as a UAW member with a degree and earn here? Or do I go out after what my degree was in and get a salary that was here? Right? Well, I didn't have to worry about it because poof, one night, 2 a.m. in the morning, I was working the graveyard shift. My supervisor came over and he said, hey, I got good news.

You're laid off. I don't exactly know what was good news about it at the time. I thought it sucked, quite frankly. But it was good news, and it was the best news that ever could have happened to me. Here's my take on all of this. Layoff suck, right? Everybody hates them, but there is a cold, hard financial reality. And there's four things.

Let me go through them. The first one is that, as Maloney's, Melissa hit on, there's an immediate cost reduction, an immediate cost reduction. Payroll being the single business biggest expense most companies have on their statements. Well, when you relieve some of the head count, you relieve some of those costs. Okay, that's the first thing. The second is, is that it boosts shareholder value. Investors, they're not emotional. They are reward efficient. they look for these as signs that the organization is moving in the right direction. So it boosts shareholder value.

The third thing, this is an operational efficiency moment. Chino, I think you hit on it nicely. Is the investment in innovation and technology starting to pay off? I think we're going to see that coming down the pipe. And Aaron, I know you're going to hit on this a little bit. But the fourth thing that is my take is that this. is that this is a great strategic realignment opportunity. The government and Doge doesn't need to be the only ones who are taking advantage of,

we know we have inefficient areas within our business. So let's cut it out. Right? We can do those regardless of the size of your organization. So those are my four takes. Let me turn it over to you, Aaron. Yeah, I want to go back, Christina, to what you were saying about companies and having their internal teams and workforce

and then bringing in specialists that come in and do their one area of expertise and they help augment the internal team, which helps things run operationally efficient. It helps to run a lean operation if you want to or not over staff and keep it right-sized. And in a normal market, that's a great scenario because if you're a highly trained expert

and you're sitting on the outside and you come in and do what you do and only what you do, and then you're on to the next. It's a great symbiotic relationship for everybody. But I think the balance is really off right now. And having been in the fractional agency world myself and in the community with a number of others, I see that in balance where it's in sometimes there's just so much saturation

of external talent because of the companies shedding jobs that are actual jobs that should be. you know, seated positions in the company and trying to make up for that with with patches, right, band-aids. And there's so much, there's such an abundance of external talent that it's, at times it's so devalued. It's almost like a race to the bottom of which, you know, who's the highest trained expert I can get for the lowest dollar value and not add headcount to my company? So it's, it's the dynamics is really off right now. Yeah, you want to have a balance. And that's why I was saying you have to be strategic about your business, right? So what do you actually need in the moment? But there's going to be, I'm a very, this is very near and dear to my heart. There's no bigger advocate for your brand than your people. So it doesn't matter how great this interim or fractional or contract person is. And they can absolutely help boost morale. Don't get me wrong. But if you really want to grow your brand, you grow it with your people.

So you hire the people that align with who you are, what your values are, and who can communicate that out in every day, in how they interact with each other and with your customers. And if you have happy people, they will tell everybody how great the brand is. Period. It's earned to its max, you know, and if you're hiring the right people and you're making sure that they're aligned to your culture, you won't have these issues, right? because you're going to find those impact players who are there to, you know, build what your vision is. And I think that's also what happens in hiring is that people hire based on skill set versus maybe somebody's operating values. And yes, they do need to have the skill set there. But if you have somebody who has a little less experience, but they align with you better, they'll end up staying with

you longer. And, you know, you won't have to trim the fat, so to speak, because they're already creating so much more impact than somebody who's just checking the boxes. In today's world, I think this is a question for Chino and Christina, in today's world with these mass layoffs happening very frequently, right? And Met is a great example where it feels like every quarter it's happening. How do you do that with your current workforce and the folks you're bringing in? That would be my question, is how do you build that? kind of, it's almost like you have to build like a resiliency trait in there, but also a recognition trait because people are so scared, they're feeling like they're not valued, because

I know a lot of people in these large companies and companies I've worked for feel like now with all of these layoffs, oh, I don't matter to that. I don't matter to this company. I'm just a number and tomorrow I could be gone. So I feel like you've got this kind of, you know, two double-edged sword where you do this for the business and for, you know, for all the reasons Sam mentioned. But like at the same time, how do you, you know, repair your culture and your and your workforce because they're in a lot of pain right now. Yeah. Yeah. I would say with this and I'll kind of segue to you to Christina, but it's very interesting. I don't like the term from the fat now. I think again, 2019 pre-COVID when we didn't see layoffs as much,

it really really was that, right? People were getting laid off because they were not performing well, and that's what happened. Now, as Sam has shared, it's become more of a fiscal thing. Again, is it a coincidence that it's every quarter that meta seems to lay off? No, it's not. know, in my day-to-day, I speak to at least one or two people every single day who've been impacted in some way or another from layoffs at, huge companies, high-level, mid-level, everything in between. And to your point, Melissa, of kind of what that morale is, is there's even people who are reaching out who have, you know, gone past and survived the layoff who are like, I'm terrified that in the next quarter, I'm up.

We talked a little bit about meta before, but kind of bringing it back to their headline of, you know, they were trimming the fat. And it's like, well, these people who have been left, you know, this is like the 20th layoff. What do you mean the fat? How are these your low performers? Because they've got past so many rounds, right?

And so I don't think anymore for most companies, particularly the big companies, it's trimming the fat. It's a fiscal decision. That said, to Christina's point earlier, we don't have to do this, right? When you look at small, medium size, like I do think we need to bring back layoffs where it actually had meeting where someone was low performing and we let them go and not using this as a fiscal tool. The way to do that is to build strong recruitment strategies, one, three, five years down the line where you are strategically and thoughtfully hiring. people that fit the kind of brand and the essence of your company that have top level skill.

We're in a market where we have so many top talent where I was pleading with them to pick up my call a few years ago who are now quote unquote on the street, right? So the matter and the need for underperformance, there's no excuse here. You have the best of the best at your disposal in a way as a company. So almost taking advantage of that and building your teams around that and finding the best, that align that are not overhiring, right? We need to stop overhiring. You need to have that recruitment plan in place knowing exactly who you need. Again, fractional is a great way to try before you buy, I like to say, is again before adding that headcount and testing someone out, them to.

testing you out to see if there's that fit is a really great way. I'm seeing more companies do that with the clients I'm working with. That said, you can't lean on fractional because it's costly. It actually sometimes has double the salary of somebody else because you're getting a top player. So that can't be your only kind of stopgap. You do need to look at hiring more thoughtfully. But Christina, I would love to kind of get your thoughts too also being in kind of the space. Well, adding to what Melissa was saying, how do you wrap your arm? around the people who are making it through layer after layer and, you know, quarter after quarter. And it really comes down to a strong internal communication plan. So we actually spoke with the CHRO

of Coca-Cola a few years ago. And they had a great plan in place. Number one, it starts from the leadership. So have a strong strategic vision. And you share that. And those people who don't really want to be a part of that, you give them opportunity to say, this is where we're headed. And, you know, if they don't want to go that way, that's great. You've already sort of determined who wants to be there. You explain, hey, these are challenges. Things are changing. Number two, you have to have a really great communication layer for the people who are managing the people day to day. So, you have your C-level executive team, but you have the people who are managing the teams, day. Communicating to them weekly, frequently, making sure that gets trickled down. I've run programs

like this, creating playbooks, weekly playbooks with how can we talk to our team? How can we get these behaviors, you know, trickled through to make sure that everybody's staying aligned? And having that two-way communication between the C-level and your, say, your frontline managers. Third, are there opportunities for people to be upskilled? So if these are positions that are going away, can you implement training where you can take some really great people and move them into a different position that, you know, certain positions will go away as technology changes, as, you know, the industry changes. Could you reskill them?

Can you upskill them? Open up those new positions. Why hire outside when you have some great people internally that just need a new skill set? And then I would say fourthly, when we're talking about the people who have made it through this over and over, keeping them aligned on what that strategic vision is through communications, through the training and communication plans, also making sure that there's opportunity for them to grow internally. So they don't see themselves as, I'm just another number. Maybe they do see the opportunity.

Hey, we're opening up these roles. Is this something you want to apply for internally? Yeah. I think you bring up some amazing points, both of you do, because I think in the real life, scenario, that's where, you know, I was getting to the whole corporate responsibility around strategic planning and how and the change management that goes along with RIFs. The problem today is that it's like the communication is happening at the top level. So a lot of RIFs, mine include, I mean, Sam, we talk to all of the kinds of communications that happen. There is like a one-line

Slack. Melissa's no longer here. Yeah. Okay. And then, like, you have a team of 450 people. What, I, I, like, where, where is she? What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, this, this. She was working on my promotion yesterday. La la la la la la la la la. And then there's no communication. And so when you think about that, what ends up happening, which I thought was really interesting. One of my colleagues and friends shared this about, she's going through lots of layoffs at her company, was they all end up becoming like little private investigators, finding, they have to sleuth around to say,

wait, now who's doing this work? Now who's doing this work? Because the communication plan hasn't been set forth and clear. And I think, Christina, it's a great idea. I know we've had, you know, town halls and things like that to try to get that. But like when you think about like who's planning these, they are sometimes so many levels away from the teams that are impacted that the operational repair has not been done. Right. They, they've let go this entire team and then they're like, oh, no, we didn't realize that this was the main conduit and contact and liaise for our number one customer, right?

You know, or whatever it might be. I mean, that might be a little exaggerated. but those types of things happen. And then you're like, oh, my gosh, we didn't really think that through. And it's not that that wasn't a good idea strategically from a fiscal perspective or a planning perspective. And I think Sam and I agree on that. It's just that how it's executed doesn't always fit.

And so I love that you have playbooks. I love that you've said these things because it's like any other initiative and actually probably more so that you have to over index on the planning side, the communication side, the time frame that it's going to take people to rebuild that trust, rebuild your brand, rebuild your culture, repair your operations. I mean, it's going to take time. And you're going to have to be able to understand that you can't force feed this to your teams. And definitely when you're thinking about a business, a lot of, you know, all the businesses we're talking about are customer facing. How is your brand and how is your product and services impacted? And your

business will be impacted negatively if they feel like we're getting less than we were a week ago when we had before the layoffs. Well, and Sam, I want to ask you, is that the responsibility of the leadership level to continue stopping, realigning the team, communicating, making sure everyone's feeling good about what's happening, or at least as good as can be, or is is it you have to keep moving. Yeah, you can have the best laid plans from a strategy perspective. You can have amazing playbooks for communication channels and what you should do and at what time intervals.

But it never eclipses the fiscal responsibility of the leaders within the organization. We act like this is something new, like layoffs are something that just got invented thanks to AI. And that is not the case. They have been around forever, but let's reality check ourselves here. Unemployment is 4.1%. On a national basis and compare contrast with Europe at large, which is almost at 6%, and those 2% points matter, we're not so bad from an economic perspective.

And we're also, from an economic perspective, the U.S., we're the big dog on the block, top of the food chain, right? So I just want some reality. This whole do more with less. You just lost half of your team, so pick up the slack. That's not something new. It's been around forever. It's easier today, though.

I'll give you a great example. It's easier today to absorb those types of losses, specifically when it comes to how it is that we innovate and leverage technology. One of the tech firms that we work with, what used to take them 16 weeks, now takes them five hours, 16 weeks to five hours, rapid compression of timeline and creation of revenue. So does it take a lot of folks?

Maybe not. Does it take some thoughtfulness from a leadership perspective and maybe some transparency? Maybe. But I think we've all worked with those leaders who, and maybe they're past leaders, but leaders who haven't been as transparent. who might have held some of the cards close to the vest because in the event that they made the announcement or misspoke about what the reality of the situation was, people might have departed, right? I think that as we go forward, we will see less, we will see less engagement. We will see less employee satisfaction.

We will see less, I'm going to be an employee for life and I think I can stay here. turnover will increase. I think we'll see less, less, less. I would agree with all of this, but I also think, too, what we need to remember with layoffs is, and, you know, again, America, you're at 4.6, I believe you quoted, you know, Canada's 6.7 right now, not great. And again, there's the fiscal responsibility, but again, there is a corporate responsibility as to how you do a layoff. Great example. It won't mention the name, but a huge, tech company that we probably all use their app on a day-to-day basis. And when they were doing this list, and again, thousands and thousands of people, they have multiple levels of HR. People were

receiving other people's layoff emails, right? It was messy. People were getting calls and it wasn't the right person. Hey, I was supposed to have this promotion and now I'm being laid up, but you're still asking me to interview what that person isn't here. That type of mess, right? And I think there is, I don't think there is a corporate responsibility. We are dealing with humans. The day that the workforce is entirely all robots is a day we can be robotic about a layoff. But there are humans that are here that we need to remember because you know what? Like everything says, you know, it's a small world. You have six degrees of separation. You're probably going to work with these people again. It'll likely be your customer, your client, who you've laid off. So how you lay off is

important. And I think that is what people make to remember. It's not a new concept. It is something we see more often than not, but the way layoffs are happening now are inhumane, right? And I want to talk about ways that we can make a layoff better because it's not going anywhere, specifically in these bigger corporations as we've been able to use tech to kind of refine and reframe how people's responsibilities are. But the human aspect is huge. And going back to Tina's point on employer branding. If you can lay off humanely, you're going to be much better off. You're going to improve your morale within your team.

And what that can look like is, you know, can you extend benefits? Are people who have been laid off? It's not the like, hey, you know, Chino's gone and poof, I just disappear. It's, hey, you know, maybe they have an opportunity to share with the team or, you know, here's how to connect with them outside of this or their LinkedIn or, you know, here's a card, here's something we can share. There are so many things you can do. And of course, HR, put your HR hat, you want to kind of mitigate some of the lawsuits that you can kind of take on. However, there are things you can do to avoid that, that's still human, that allows people who have been

laid off. Maybe you have a list of people where it's like, hey, we have great folks, anyone's hiring, you know, you're connecting them to recruiters. You're helping them with, you know, tailing and upscaling their resume. You know, there's groups that you're creating. There are ways to do this humanely. And I think that's what we need to remember when we talk about this, because I understand the fiscal responsibility. I get it as a business owner. I understand it from being on the HR side where I've had to lay off people that said, there's a way in which we can do this that can actually help and build your employer brand and help the people that are there. And, you know, as someone who's talking to people who've been laid off in some of the worst ways,

it's not okay. And I don't want this to be the standard. And I think that's something that we need to be able to fix. Yeah. Maybe there's a good way of with dignity and respect, letting go of folks. Exactly. With dignity and respect. You know, one of our best programs right now is what we call leaders in transition.

It's a 90-day program where as leaders are either forced out or maybe they're smelling the coffee and they want to get ahead of it. They want out before the axe falls on them. This program specifically is the responsibility, though, of the individuals from a financial perspective. But it puts them in a better position almost as a marketing sales campaign to target where it is their next opportunity might lie. Outreach connect with those leaders. and just like a sales campaign, find a home. It's an amazing process for us. I also like Chino, what you said earlier,

that I don't like the trim the fat line. I heard it termed, you can trim the fat, but you sometimes nick the muscle, and that's never a good moment either. Yeah, I think what these companies are doing is creating challenger brands. They're creating this widespread pool of talent. They're cutting business lines

and even profit centers that are less profitable for big companies, that's a business right there, right? That for a small company, you could pick up an entire business line and the people that ran it, you know, that entire division and run it as a company. So I think, you know, in this market, small companies, if they can, if they can bear it, you know, scrape together whatever investment capital there is, pick up those people. I would say in three to five years, we're going to see these challenger brands go up against the very companies that let these people go. And it's going to be a really, really interesting dynamic.

I 100% agree. That's why you're seeing more fractional support, small businesses opening up. You've never seen it before. I think that's also what's helped mitigate some of these unemployment rates, which is incredible to see. Again, to your point of the good, nicking the muscle, right? Okay, you cut the fat, but there are so many people I see. speak to you who are the top of the top of this talent. And if this company lost one of these two key players of leadership, they're screwed. They're already looking because, you know, I've had an

amazing conversation with a leader, again, like precedent level of a huge tech company who is saying, yeah, I don't like the way the stakeholders and the board members kind of did this. You know, I helped grow this team for eight years. I have relationships. with people. People are reaching out to me saying, what the hell happened here? And, you know, again, working with that person on the kind of next steps and where they're going to go. And to this company, there's a huge company, that's going to be detrimental. And what they're doing now, and by not being humane, is setting up and pissing off their future competitors. So give it three, four years, to your point, Aaron, you're going to have the people who you let go who know your business

inside and out who do not give, excuse my friend, a fuck about you where they're going to come and be your number one competitors. And so it's again, from a fiscal perspective, being humane and human, sometimes will actually help you at the tail end of this. And I'm excited kind of to see, not excited, but I, you know, we're going to see that shift as more and more layoffs happen. Yeah. I also think that there to Sam brought this up and I've talked about this a lot with corporate responsibility, you know, we put a lot of onus on the business, but there's also personal responsibility as an employee. And so I love what you're doing, Sam, with, you know, with, you know, sharing, you know, what does your future hold? That is your responsibility as an

employee, as a leader. I'm sure Christina and you know, you hear this all the time. I used to share this with my leadership team, with people that I mentored, skip level conversations, I'd say, you should always be testing the market. And what I mean by that is then you know, what are the skill sets that you need to up level and learn, okay, AI, whatever it might be, right? You know, so that you would be the most attractive candidate in any pool, right? It's not because I'm saying I want you to leave the company or leave this team, but it's always in our best interest to always strive to be better and to do more. So I do feel like, you know, of course, I'm not blaming anyone for layoffs, but what I'm saying is that you can, you can always

prepare yourself by always being your best advocate because that is where it's at. You have to be your best advocate. And I think, you know, looking for opportunities like what Sam has suggested and you know, that there are within your organization today, within your network, all over, you've got to put your best foot forward. Yeah. When we work with leaders, we request every three years they go out and test the market. It's not quiet quitting. I mean, just go out and test your market value.

Pick up my call. You'll identify if there is a place that's going to pay you more. And if that's the case, then bring that offer letter into your superior or HR. and say, hey, look, I don't want to leave. But in all transparency, I receive the better job offer. And here's how much more it pays or the benefits are this much and see that they will match it. I see that 90% of the time, the organization steps up and says, yeah, we're not going to lose you. Now, the caveat of that is, what if you go out and you do the market test and you identify, oh, my gosh, I'm getting paid more than the market.

my recommendation shut up go to work there's a sense of like understanding that the company really values me like that they're paying me over market

they don't have to and I am in a really great position and I have the space I have a role I can actually go and take some courses to up skill and up level

and I think that's I mean I agree I think it's it's not about leaving what you have. It's about knowing what the competitive landscape looks like. And I mean, I think we would always want to do that. I mean, it's like, you know, if you have kids that are applying to colleges, they're not all applying, hopefully, not just to one college, right? You know, you say, okay, you can have your dream school. Good luck to you there. And then you have the others, right? But

you should have choices. And I think that if you don't do that, you're not giving yourself choices, right? So, yeah. Well, I don't think we fixed the idea of mass layoffs. Like, that's old as the hills and it's not going anywhere. But did we find, you know, between taking care of your people, internal communication, the fiscal responsibility, re-skilling, upskilling, and then also not giving those who have been let go, the motivation to become super villains and come back and take a bite out of your company,

did we find a better way around what's happening right now? Christina, what do you think? Well, I liked what you were saying, Melissa. Never let yourself become obsolete. I don't 100% agree, though, with shopping yourself. Yes, you should always know what you're worth. But I think if somebody's shopping around and they're going to get a better offer, they're already one foot out the door, right?

Coming back to the company and say, hey, I can get paid more. Do you really want to work for a company who's underpaying you? Probably not. I mean, that's the advice I would give a candidate. it. I don't know. I think, I think, you know, it's not a perfect world. And yes, if people are more thoughtful about their hiring and their business, you could probably avoid a lot of this. If we're not treating people as transactions, you know, like to Sam's point, you know, let's reduce our overhead so we can show more profits. And I think you're always going to have

that in business. Not everybody is as warm and wonderful as we are here. But gosh, I think I'd love to keep talking about it, but I think it really comes down to, you know, being a person, you know, the world's not ever going to be taken over by robots, even if we have robots doing a lot of roles. It's still people buying the products, people using the services. You can't take the human out of it. So, you know, you just have to be thoughtful. You just have to be thoughtful. All right, Melissa, what do you think? Do we find a better way to navigate the situation? Well, I think we all agree that layoffs are more than just a financial decision. They're a double-edged sword.

And while they can help us streamline operations, cut costs, they also risk damaging morale, customer trust, long-term innovation. The key is to approach these workforce reductions strategically and with a focus on preserving our core capabilities or the company's core capabilities and the remaining employees. And also approaching them like Christina and Chino, we've all talked about from a human perspective with empathy, transparency, and vision, I think. So I think that we've brought some really key things up because what we have seen as outsiders' perspectives and maybe some of us as insiders is those are things that it doesn't really feel like all of those things are being put together in a puzzle. Thanks, well. Sam, what do you say? Yeah, Aaron, I think the better question is, was there really ever anything to fix?

My take is, I said it at the beginning, I'll say it again, layoffs suck. But they also signal evolution, right? Companies that make cuts strategically rather than reactively, those are the ones that are going to come out ahead. The ones that do this layoff moment blindly, they're going to be the ones that are going to be right back at the hiring table. we all know who they are, and they're going to be scrambling for talent that they just let go. Thanks, Sam. Chino, final thoughts? I think when it comes to bigger companies and layoffs, I don't think we fix that, so I think it's something that's always going to happen.

But have we provided solutions on how to do a layoff more humanely? Absolutely. Have we looked at it in a sense where if we can hire strategically, like Christina had been sharing as well, and not over hiring to avoid layoffs, especially for those mid-size. Again, great opportunities. You don't lose that talent like Sam has been talking about. So I don't think we fix the problem. We're going to continue to see layoffs, but we've provided solutions on how to do it in a more human way.

Very good. Thanks, Chino. Chris, thank you again to our guest, Christina. Christina remind us where can our listeners find you? You can find us online. It's www. protisglobal.com That's spelled P-R-O-T-I-S

Global G-L-O-B-A-L. Thanks for having me. This has been very enjoyable. Thanks for helping on with us, Christina. And Sam, our recurring finance panelists, where can listeners find you? Yeah, listeners can find me at sampalazolo.com.

If you want to find out more about our Leaders in Transition Program, outreach, connect with me either there or on LinkedIn. We also have a series of catalyst programs. The CEO catalyst, it helps leaders lead themselves, lead their teams, even if it's just a team of one, and scale their business, whatever their business is. Thank you, Sam.

That does it for us. For those who have been impacted by the recent layoffs in this job market in general, we'll put some resources up there for you on this episode page on we fixeditpod.com. And also, don't forget to take our survey. We've extended it through the end of March. You'll find that on the website to we fixedetpod. We'll see you next time. This podcast is produced by Straightforward Media Group, All Rights Reserved.

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