Member Exclusive: How to communicate a strong employer brand amid layoffs

By Allison Carter, editor-in-chief of PR Daily. 

Layoffs are devastating for those who are told they no longer have a job. 

But they’re no walk in the park for those left behind, either. And they can cause doubt and concern among those who are considering joining your organization – even if it’s in an area of the business that was not directly impacted by the cuts. 

Reinforcing the organization’s culture and commitments in your employer brand can help soothe some of these anxieties, especially when it’s woven directly into executive communications around the layoffs. 

Addressing the impacts of layoffs head-on can help preserve your existing talent. Reacting with empathy and compassion can help new talent see themselves working at the organization, even if they’ve just had to say goodbye to some workers.  

One method of doing this is through the all-important layoff memo or email. Increasingly, these documents are being published externally immediately after being shared with employees so all stakeholders can see the same information. This can simultaneously serve as a way to reassure your remaining top performers and show prospective workers why you’re worth taking a chance on. 

Let’s take a look at some recent layoff notices that have walked that tightrope of empathy and employer branding. 

Explain your reasoning 

No one likes being bossed around without being told why. 

Even if many aspects of a layoff are outside of our personal control, ensuring your stakeholders understand the logic behind it can make the bitter pill a little easier to swallow. 

That’s why it’s critical to take the time to explain what happened to lead you to make the decision to cut jobs, even if that means admitting to mistakes. 
 
Zoom exemplified this principle during a round of February 2023 layoffs. In a letter posted to the company’s website, CEO Eric Yuan took responsibility for the cuts – including financial responsibility. Here’s a portion of that letter: 

Steps we are taking 

Each organization across Zoom will be impacted by these changes. We did not take a single departure lightly – our leadership carefully examined and made decisions based on critical priorities for long-term growth, and also looked for functions that have become overly complex or duplicative. Some teams will also be adjusting their structures to allow us to better invest in the opportunities ahead. But today we are focused on supporting those leaving Zoom and making the transition as respectful and compassionate as possible. 

As the CEO and founder of Zoom, I am accountable for these mistakes  and the actions we take today– and I want to show accountability not just in words but in my own actions. To that end, I am reducing my salary for the coming fiscal year by 98% and foregoing my FY23 corporate bonus. Members of my executive leadership team will reduce their base salaries by 20% for the coming fiscal year while also forfeiting their FY23 corporate bonuses. 

Zoom did several things right here from an employer branding perspective: 

• Explaining the seriousness with which the company took the cuts. 

• Pointing out who the cuts would impact (everyone) and where the cuts would be deepest. 

• Putting leadership’s own skin in the game by explaining pay cuts and salary forfeits for executives. This shared pain can be a powerful tool for building trust. 

By being transparent about what happened, who it will impact and how executives are owning the outcome, trust is built. But this is just the beginning.  

Show how you treat people 

Each layoff period is a fearful time. Even if you’ve dodged the ax, you still want to ensure your coworkers are taken care of. Or, if you’re on the outside eyeing a potential employer, seeing how it treats people being asked to leave the company is a unique window into how they might treat you.  
 
Increasingly, employers are being transparent with both current employees and the outside world about severance benefits. Below is an excellent example from Riot Games, which produces popular video games like “League of Legends.” Riot described their severance benefits in great detail and released the entire statement externally:  

Rioters whose roles are going away, and who aren’t moving into new positions, will be offered: 

• Severance Pay — We’ll offer a minimum 6 months of salary, which includes notice period for all Rioters whose roles are going away, and more for those with longer tenure, in line with local laws.  

• Cash Bonus — We’ll offer a cash bonus equal to 1x (100% of) everyone’s individual 2023 Annual Performance Bonus (APB) target, even if Rioters joined within the last year. 

• Health Benefits — In locations where Riot provides healthcare, Rioters covered by our health benefits will continue to be covered through their last day of employment. In addition, they’ll be offered additional pay to cover their health benefits (medical, dental and vision), equal to the length of severance pay, and rounded up to the whole month. 

• Play Fund, Wellness Fund, etc. — We know Rioters may have planned future expenses that would normally be covered by things like the Play Fund & Wellness Fund, so we’re offering an additional $1000 (or local equivalent) to cover these and other types of expenses. 

• Equity — Rioters who have received Riot shares from vesting their single-vesting RSUs will get to keep them, subject to their terms and conditions. This also applies to other vested instruments (like options, or cash-settled SARs in certain jurisdictions such as China). In the event of a future buyback opportunity, we intend to allow these former Rioters to participate. Rioters who hold dual-vesting equity, who have satisfied the service-based vesting component at the time of exit, will be able to vest their equity in the event we have a qualifying liquidity event (like a change-in-control transaction) within the next 12 months. 

• Computer — A laptop is an essential part of finding new work, so after returning their work computers, Rioters will have the option to request a laptop from IT if they don’t have one at home. They can keep their current peripherals like their headset, mouse, and keyboard. 

• Career Support — Rioters will have immediate access to job placement services for 6 months including, career coaching, networking, resume writing and review, and more to help them transition to a new job.  

• Rioter Assistance Program — Rioters will continue to have access to RAP 24/7 for three months after they leave Riot which includes trained counselors who can help with emotional, legal, and financial concerns. In addition, enhanced employee assistance programs (including mental health benefits) will be accessible in a number of locations worldwide. Our local HRBPs will provide information about these programs as available.    

• Visa Support — We know this change will be particularly challenging for Rioters who hold visas as part of their employment with Riot. Each situation is unique, and we have dedicated support lined up for those who need it. This includes supporting transitions to non-employment visas where possible. Our Global Mobility team and outside immigration consultants will be in touch with impacted Rioters ASAP to discuss their individual situations. 

• Riot Email Access — Rather than immediately cut off email access, which is more common in these moments, we will continue to provide access to impacted Rioters for a limited time after notification (this will vary by region). We want to make sure Rioters who are leaving us this week have a bit of time to identify and unwind any personal info or accounts that may be tied to their Riot email addresses.   

The excellent and industry-leading benefits are key here. But even if your organization isn’t able to offer full bonuses and six months of pay, it can still offer simple, human benefits that show the company understands the pain points employees are going through. Something as simple as offering a longer time to move accounts from a professional email address to a personal one can communicate a human touch that marks a good employer, in times of plenty and in time of pain.  

But there comes a point where organizations must stop looking back communicate how they plan to move forward – without some of their teams.  

Chart a course forward 

Layoffs usually indicate that an organizational change needs to be made. This can mean anything from reducing layers of management to shutting down certain departments altogether to a total reorganization.  

In the moment of layoffs, people expect to know, inside and outside your organization, what comes next. The more detail you can give, the better. 

All the details might not be known or worked out yet, and that’s OK. But giving more information in that initial layoff notice can help people buy into a new vision.  

Riot Games again offers a strong example of this by specifing what the news means for teams working on specific game titles by reaffirming its commitment to some, explaining cutbacks for others and even explaining which areas will be sunset. And the notice outlines a timeline for providing further information, as well as when players will learn more.  

What this means for our portfolio.  

Let me start by saying we’re as committed as ever to League PC, VALORANT, TFT, Wild Rift, and to exploration in R&D. In some cases, we’re reshaping our portfolio and teams to develop these games more effectively, but you can expect these to be areas where we continue to invest. Our commitment to esports and entertainment in support of our games is also unchanged. The relationships we have with players are a real differentiator for us, so we’ll continue building the experiences in and around our games that have a meaningful impact on what it feels like to be a player.  

While it's the normal course of business for us to spin projects up and down, we also need to make hard choices when our bets aren’t performing as well as we hoped. We’re making adjustments to some of our R&D efforts across games, esports, and entertainment. We’re also re-thinking the level of support we demand from our enterprise teams. And we’ve made two decisions about our current games portfolio that we want to share with you now. We plan to announce these to players shortly.  

• As Legends of Runeterra continues its journey, we’re making changes to move the game toward sustainability. We know there’s a passionate community who absolutely love this game, and we do too. However, it hasn't performed as well as we need it to, despite our best efforts. We’ve been subsidizing the cost of development on LoR through our other games, but at this point, that’s just not a viable option. So, we’re reducing the size of the team and shifting our focus to the 'Path of Champions' PvE game mode. 

• In addition, we’re sunsetting Riot Forge after the upcoming release of Bandle Tale. Forge has been our collaboration with external studios to develop smaller scale games in our IP. While we’re proud of what we’ve created in this space, and we’re grateful for the Forge team and for our external partners who made these games happen, we don’t view this as core to our strategy moving forward. We aren’t closing the door entirely on single-player experiences or working with other developers if the right project comes along, but we would want it to look pretty different in the future.  

In early February, we’ll be holding a product focused RiotNow to get deeper into our portfolio and to discuss some of our plans for players in 2024. 

If you were a video game developer looking to one day work for Riot, this road map could make you feel confident. Plans change, of course, but it’s clear that Riot has an idea of where they need to go to achieve profitability.  

Similarly, cloud storage company Dropbox painted a picture of what its future looks like, one powered by AI as never before. To achieve that, the company clearly explained what needs to happen – including why workers can’t simply be reassigned and why new skills are required. Here’s a portion of their layoff memo:  

The opportunity in front of us is greater than ever, but so is our need to act with urgency to seize it. Over the last few months, AI has captured the world’s collective imagination, expanding the potential market for our next generation of AI-powered products more rapidly than any of us could have anticipated. However, this momentum has also alerted our competitors to many of the same opportunities. 

In an ideal world, we’d simply shift people from one team to another. And we’ve done that wherever possible. However, our next stage of growth requires a different mix of skill sets, particularly in AI and early-stage product development. We’ve been bringing in great talent in these areas over the last couple years and we'll need even more. 

And we need to acknowledge some other hard truths. In some areas, investments that showed promise before the downturn have more limited potential today. In others, we haven’t been executing consistently or managing performance as tightly as we need to. So we’ve made more significant cuts in these areas in order to free up investment in our future growth. 

The message is compassionate but clear, getting ahead of questions about why layoffs, rather than reorganization, is needed, while also focusing on the opportunity. A job seeker reading this can be reassured: Growth is coming, but just in different ways. 

By following these principles, you can keep your employer brand strong, even in the midst of turmoil.