WilLaVeist.com

By Philip Walzer

The Virginian-Pilot

Chanita Darville got the word at noon on a Friday in January. The struggling furniture manufacturer where she worked as purchasing manager for nearly a year was letting her go.

She was told to leave that day. She got no severance. But what peeves her most is that she wasn't given a good reason.

"Be honest with me," said Darville, 41, of Norfolk. "Don't tell me it wasn't working out. I worked late every day. I worked weekends."

Steve Carrier's layoff in December was less frustrating.

General Dynamics Electric Boat in Portsmouth gave the technician two months' notice. It also provided 40 hours of paid "transition time" while he was at work to look for a new job.

A disagreement over vacation pay delayed his unemployment benefits, he said. Otherwise, "the positives outweighed the negatives by far," said Carrier, 46, of Virginia Beach.

The deluge of layoffs and firings besieging the country is far from over. Though losing a job never is pleasant, companies can work to ease the grief - and ward off legal repercussions - say lawyers, employers and laid-off workers.

Break the news face to face. Two weeks' notice and severance pay would be nice too.

And, employment attorneys on both sides say, be straight about the reason someone is being forced out, whether it's job performance or the economy.

"A lot of people tell me they're not sure what happened," said Lisa Bertini, a plaintiffs attorney in Norfolk. "A majority were just not told anything. Usually, it leaves a really bad taste in their mouth."

Scott Kezman, a lawyer with Kaufman & Canoles in Norfolk who represents employers, said, "If people believe they're not being told the truth, or they're not getting the straight story and they think the employer is hiding something, that's going to make them more likely to go see a lawyer."

Another suggestion: Don't reduce your staff simply by getting rid of the "bad apples."

"The cardinal sin is selection based on subjective criteria," said William E. Rachels Jr., an attorney with Willcox & Savage in Norfolk.

Better, he and other lawyers said, to draft a set of criteria - which could include job performance and seniority - to determine who should go.

Companies should then scour the list of potential casualties to see if a disproportionate number fall in a certain class - such as age, race, gender or disability.

"What you do not want to have is an obvious pattern that would appear to discriminate" against a group, Rachels said.

Once the decision is made, there are other ways to reduce friction:

Breaking the news. Do it in person and at a time - say, early morning or lunchtime - when few colleagues are around.

"I don't think phone or e-mail is ever acceptable, unless there's some drastic situation," said Wil LaVeist, a Suffolk writer and author of "Fired Up: How to Win When You Lose Your Job."

"If you're doing it via e-mail, you're saying, 'This person is not worth the time or the dignity of a face-to-face meeting,'

" said LaVeist, who last month lost his job as editor of Mix magazine, which was closed by The Virginian-Pilot.

Officials at Smithfield Foods Inc., which announced 1,800 layoffs last month, and The Virginian-Pilot, which has laid off 180 workers since the fall, said they almost always deliver the news in person.

Norfolk Southern Corp. can't, said Harold Mobley, the company's vice president of labor relations.

Norfolk Southern has a crew management office in Atlanta, which informs conductors and brakemen when assignments change, he said.

"Since it's been centralized, it's all handled out of Atlanta," Mobley said.

Giving notice. The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, requires 60 days' notice if a plant closing affects at least 50 workers at one site, or at least 500 employees - or one-third of the staff - are laid off at one location within a month.

If the reductions don't trigger the WARN requirements, Rachels suggested two weeks' notice unless "the employee is not conducting himself satisfactorily" during that period. Likewise, some workers might be released immediately if they have access to confidential data, Kezman said.

Don't make it a spectacle, advised Rozanne "Roze" Worrell, a consultant who writes a column for The Pilot's Career Connection section.

"Unless your employees have given you a reason not to trust them, I wouldn't hover over them while they're packing up or give them security escorts or treat them as if they've done something wrong," she said.

Severance packages. There's no legal requirement to offer severance, but a package usually includes a clause precluding legal action.

It's "smart business," LaVeist said. "It says the company valued the employee and understands it is going to be a tough transition. It also says something to employees that remain and future employees."

COBRA. Employers must inform exiting workers that they can continue their health insurance, at higher rates, under COBRA, the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. The stimulus package provides a 65 percent COBRA subsidy for up to nine months for most people laid off between Sept. 1, 2008, and Dec. 31, 2009.