Decision Making

Re-organization and Layoff

PHL/320

March 2016

Re-organization and Layoff: Decision Making Evaluation Paper

        The creative solution that was chosen from last week’s paper was the recommendation that employers give an innovative furlough to employees before performing a layoff. The team felt this was the right choice because it is the one we felt gave leeway to both sides; the financially vulnerable company and the job security-seeking employee. To start things off, a description of furloughs will be given and how they relate to employees and employers.

Why Furlough?

Furlough is mandatory unpaid time off. As a group, we decided that it may be in a company’s best interest to implement furloughs instead of resorting to a layoff because it will save a company money, and employees are able to keep their jobs. According to Heathfield (2015), some disadvantages to a furlough are: the amount of work remains constant, the initial culture may be injured, employee stress, and innovation may fall by the wayside (para. 7-14). Despite these disadvantages, we all agreed it may still be in a company’s best interest to furlough employees instead of laying them off. Because the purpose of a furlough is to help save a company money, employers must ensure employees do not perform any work-related tasks; otherwise the company is obligated to pay them (Heathfield, 2016, para. 1-4).

Business Decision to Implement

After reviewing other alternative options to save money, if a company chooses to furlough its employees, they are most likely going to set a furlough time period. Based on our team’s personal experience with furlough, employees may have the option to request a particular time frame to take off as long as it is within the furlough window. In any furlough, it is found to be a good business practice to “Limit the Furlough Pain” (Fox, 2009, para. 13). To limit the pain, Fox went on to explain that a company should communicate early and often, give employees some flexibility, spread the pain, and accentuate the positive (para. 14-17).

        Another factor a company should consider when implementing a furlough is which employees to furlough. The employees to be furloughed will be different for each company. It depends on the company’s needs and how they can continue to function during the furlough period(s). In the case of our team’s experience with government furlough, all employees-except exempt employees-were subject to furlough. Once all of the potential pitfalls have been addressed, implementation and proper management are the next steps to a successful furlough plan.