The best way to lay off employees is to not do it, but that is not going to happen. So, what is the next step? Before a company lays anyone off, they should take a realistic assessment of who is doing the majority of the work and how well they are doing it. You can't automatically assume that the best employee for the job is the one who has been there the longest. You can't automatically assume that the person who has been there the least amount of time hasn't learned the tools to be better then their superiors. What they need to do is determine their fiscal goals and then determine how to best maintain a solid workforce while keeping customers, clients, and fellow employees happy. If it is determined that there needs to be mass firings then bring them into an office and tell them face to face, the emails and things that have been in the media are not right. They are cowardly. When you are going to fire someone you bring them in and sit them down and get through the details.

There's never an easy way to do this. The best suggestion I could offer is to give as much advance notice as possible to employees to start looking for work elsewhere, so they're not left stranded.

Yes. I would suggest offering a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Or a gigantic severance package, or two months of pay while they look for a new job...these would work well, I think.

Your job is a massive part of your identity; when you take that away from someone you're essentially bruising a really core part of them. There's never a good way to lay someone off but there are better ways. Be upfront and fair – give them a reason, give them a good severance package, give them time to say goodbye and to acclimate to the idea. If you have security concerns fine – handle sensitive information carefully but don't boot someone out the same day unless there's a really good reason. Let them leave with dignity.

Well, define "good way". I think you can lay off employees with dignity in three ways:

1. Be upfront and honest about the reasons for layoffs-FULL disclosure (i.e. if it was bad business decisions, then say so)

2. Be sure executive level staff took cuts in bonuses/perks and/or salary before layoffs were considered

3. Make great attempts at offering new positions within the company to downsized staff OR help them (really) find work outside the company

Completely agree with Kelly and Saabira. Sometimes layoffs are necessary and/or unavoidable. The best thing a company can do is make the transition as smooth as possible (i.e. severance packages, help finding another job, etc.)

this is very similar to the ad approach done by pandora.com. In my opinion, pandora does a much better job since they still give their content a bit more, if not the same priority as the ad. Also, the ads are usually designed into the site, which makes it a bit more digestible.

"We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week." - Bob Slydell (Officespace)

Eventhough noone ever wants to be laid off I think one way to help employees that are being laid off besides the obvious of better severance packages is to give them some notice. When an employee leaves the company they try to give 2 weeks notice as a courtesy so the company can begin to fill their position. Why can employers not give that same courtesy? I was laid off from a company and they gave me 10 minutes to clean out my desk. With some more time I could have lined up another job or at least not feel embarrased when I had to walk out with the contents of my desk in hand so everyone could see that I was being let go.

Give employees the courtesy of knowing that they are being laid off so it does not hit them by surprise and does not leave them enough time to clean out their desk and say farewll to their coworkers.

This might be veering slightly off topic, but I was recently interviewing the editor-in chief of a Finnish newspaper, and during our conversation asked her if the recent decline in print news was resulting in similar newsroom cuts there as in the U.S. It wasn't until I asked my question that I realized it not to be applicable: To get fired in Finland, an employee has to reeeallly screw up. So no, no newsroom cuts.

Made me a little homesick...I have to say.