The first questions you should ask if you're laid off

The coronavirus pandemic has brought widespread layoffs, and with that, a sense of job anxiety. If you're worried that layoffs may be coming to your organization, how can you best prepare? And if you are laid off, what are the first things you should ask?

Susan Peppercorn is an executive and career coach who guides people through job transitions. She shared three steps you can take to ensure you're not caught off guard if layoffs strike, and specific benefits and services you should ask for when they do.

If you suspect layoffs are coming, what should you do?

• • Keep a list of your accomplishments: Make note of how you personally contributed to your company's goals, or how projects you worked on drove revenue.
  • Update your LinkedIn profile: Make sure your personal brand is in good shape before it's time to start looking for new work. 
  • Reach out to your network: Maintain mutually-beneficial relationships all the time — not just when you're asking for help.

If you are laid off, what should you do?

• • Know what to ask for: Career transition services, healthcare plan continuation, future job references, severance agreements, stock options, and retirement plan funding through year-end are all things that may not be offered to you unless you ask.
  • Ask an expert for help: Don't sign anything without consulting an employment attorney — you don't want to get stuck with a noncompete clause that limits your ability to work elsewhere.
  • Take back control: Apply for unemployment, update your resume, activate your network, and tell friends and family what happened. Ask your employer if you can send a company-wide email announcing your departure yourself.

Following is a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity.

Susan Peppercorn: We're losing not only the job, we're losing a community of people, some of whom are friends. We're losing our income. In some cases we're losing health insurance. And we're losing our identity. And all of these things happen at once and we have no control over it, none whatsoever.

Charlie Herman: How do you counsel people in this, you know, age of anxiety about the fact that they could lose their job at any point?

Peppercorn: Well, the way that I would before the coronavirus, which means this: that we are responsible for our own careers no matter what, and that we have to be in control of our own careers, because the days of companies and organizations taking care of us are long, long gone.

Herman: It sounds like you're saying you should be prepared at any moment you could be let go. You always need to be thinking about what are next steps for you, if you want to have a career.

Peppercorn: Yeah, that's what I am saying.

Herman: [laughs] That's a little, I don't know, there's, there's an element of, how does that foster uh loyalty or you want to invest in a company if you're also kind of thinking, "wow, at any point they could let me go?"

Peppercorn: Well, it doesn't really foster loyalty, but loyalty can be built in different ways. It can be built in communities that you choose to build and that you choose to foster. And those communities can be built in an organization where you work, but it doesn't have to be slavish loyalty—

Herman: To the company itself.

Peppercorn: To the company itself. Exactly.

Herman: So if you know, or you sense that there could be layoffs coming to your organization, how do you best prepare yourself? Can you?

Peppercorn: Yes, you can. You know what I find with people that I work with, the single biggest regret that I hear about is that they did not keep their network refreshed. Because you know, when you're working, you know, you're busy doing your job and you don't think that it's important to network, especially, you know, if you're working and you have a family and there were other things that you're doing outside of work.

Herman: And you got a good job and you think things are going fine.

Peppercorn: Right. But, um, the single biggest regret that people tell me about is that they didn't continue to network while they were working.

Herman: It's sort of like having a rainy day fund, like always kind of being ready that something could go wrong.

Peppercorn: Yes. But it's more than that. I would say, Charlie, it's really about building relationships because when you call it a rainy day fund, it sounds a little, I don't know, callous in a way, you know, that you're building this fund just to have people there, if you need them—

Herman: Right, right.

Peppercorn: In case something goes wrong, but that's not really the goal of having a network. The goal of having a network is to give to that network as well as to take from that network.

Herman: You started going through like things that you can do to be prepared if you think you're going to be laid off.

Peppercorn: Sure. So we talked about the network. Keep a list of your accomplishments. Most people don't do this. You know, most people go through the day and their week and they're like, "okay, I did this, I did that." And then they're onto the next thing. But when you have to create a resume after you've been laid off and I've seen this hundreds of times, you know, to go back and think through a year ago, two years ago, five years ago is extremely difficult to remember back over periods of time. But if you keep a list on a daily and a weekly basis of things that you accomplished — and I'm talking about where you've made an impact, like an action that you took and what resulted from that action, you know, a business result — it will be so much easier for you to construct that resume when you need it.

And, you know, if you have a resume updated periodically and keep, um, a fully fleshed out LinkedIn profile. Have a good photograph, you know, have an about section, which a lot of people don't use. Even if you don't suspect that you're going to be laid off, but just as a best practice to keep your branding fresh. Then if it happens, you'll be prepared and you're not scrambling, you know, at the 11 th hour, especially when you're in emotional crisis.

Herman: Yeah. When you're in a state of "what do I do?" and you suddenly have to think, "I have to update my LinkedIn profile and write a description about myself?"

Peppercorn: Especially when you're not feeling good about yourself.

Herman: What do you advise people that when they're in that moment, that they have just been told, but they're being, let go, how do they respond? What should they say? What should they do?

Peppercorn: Take a deep breath. You know, you're going to be overwhelmed by emotion. Most people are. Some people cry. The reality is you are shell shocked. And so the best thing that you can do is to say nothing. And in fact, you can say to the employer, um, when you're told that you would like to go home. 

Herman: You don't recommend trying to negotiate there in the moment, trying to save your job? 

Peppercorn: Absolutely not.

Herman: Why?

Peppercorn: Because 99.9% of the time, you can't do anything about it. Usually these are business driven decisions that have nothing to do with the performance of the person that it's happening to. Now, especially now around the pandemic, the reasons for layoffs have nothing at all to do with the people being affected. These are purely, purely business decisions. And I think that that's really important for the person being affected to remind themselves of, because there's a lot of self recrimination that goes along with being laid off.

Herman [in narration]: It's sort of what you hear when you're dating, but this time it's true: it's not about you, it's about them — the company. Susan says there are still some things you can do in this situation, like asking your employer if you can send out the announcement of your departure.

Peppercorn: You want to take control as much as possible of the messaging around your leaving.

Herman [in narration]: You also want to check to see if your manager will agree to be a reference for you, if your next employer is looking for one. 

Peppercorn: You don't want a written letter. Those are pretty much worthless.

Herman [in narration]: Susan has developed a checklist of steps to take as soon as you've been laid off, starting with unemployment insurance:

Peppercorn: You do qualify for unemployment unless you've been let go for cause. Let's say, you know, you've stolen money from the company and you're being fired. Okay? And I'm using the word fired, deliberately—

Herman: Which is different than laid off.

Peppercorn: That's different than a layoff. Then you're not eligible, but under every other circumstance, if there's been a downsizing, if there's been a restructuring, you are eligible for unemployment. And I want to add to that, even if you're going to receive severance, which in some cases employees are eligible for, if you get a lump sum severance package, you are still eligible to collect unemployment the day after your last day of an employment.

Herman: What are other questions that you need to ask, uh, if not right in the moment you've been laid off, but very shortly afterwards?

Peppercorn: So you need to ask, when you're going to receive your last paycheck, are you going to get paid for unused vacation time? You need to ask if you're going to receive severance.

Herman: Are companies required to provide severance?

Peppercorn: No, but you certainly can ask for it.

Herman: Is negotiation possible either to get one or even to get more?

Peppercorn: Yes. In both cases, especially if you're at a senior level. You need to ask if you're at a senior level, you need to ask about, um, stock and stock options. The other thing you need to be aware of is whether there is a noncompete clause either in your employment contract or in your severance agreement. So if you have a severance agreement, don't just sign it. Have an employment attorney look it over because you don't want to be bound and restricted by a noncompete clause, which could make it very difficult for you to get reemployed in the same industry.

Herman: If you are negotiating for more money and the company just won't provide it to you when you've been laid off, what are other things that you could try and negotiate for to help smooth the process of being let go?

Peppercorn: Okay. So that's a good question. You could ask for career transition services. The lingo in the industry is called "outplacement services." So that's how HR, human resources people refer to it, services provided by individuals or companies that help people with things like resumes, um, how to look for jobs. So that is definitely something that can be asked for that is not necessarily offered unless someone will ask for it.

Herman: And what about health care?

Peppercorn: What often happens with healthcare is that an employee will go on something called COBRA, which is a continuation of healthcare benefits, but from the employee perspective, it's much more expensive than what they would have been paying in as an employee of the company. So what they should be asking for is a continuation of their healthcare plan for a period of time as it had existed previously.

Herman: Ok and then what about if you've been fortunate enough to have, uh, some sort of retirement account, what should you think about when you're laid off?

Peppercorn: Can you completely fund it, you know, for the year, if you're laid off before the end of the calendar year.

Herman: Meaning if you're laid off in March, could you put in all the money you were planning to put in your 40 1k to December at that point in March?

Peppercorn: Yes. You can ask your employer if that's something that you can do. So that's one thing, and then you should talk to a financial advisor about what the specifics are about how long you have to roll over that 401k, and whether you can keep it in your previous employer's investment system.

Herman: These are all specific things you can do uh, once you've learned that you're being laid off and you're not going to have a job, but part of being laid off as we've talked about is there's the emotional component to it. It's like you are going through five stages of grief, um, and there's, I'd maybe add a sixth one, embarrassment. So, how do you prepare emotionally? What advice do you give long term going forward to just cope with the fact that you have been laid off from your job?

Peppercorn: I think the biggest thing that I would recommend is to resist self-criticism. That's number one. When something like this happens, our minds are naturally going to go to, what could I have done differently? What could I have done to prevent this from happening? Pull yourself out of that, you know, stop reliving it. Number two is really take action. So a lot of those things we were talking about, Charlie: apply for unemployment, update your resume, talk to your friends and family about what happened, start to activate your network, refresh your LinkedIn profile, take stock of your finances. All of these things will give you a sense of: I'm in control. I can do these things. Yes, something happened to me that I didn't have control over, but these are things that I can do to take back control over my own life and my own career.

Herman: Susan. Thank you very much.

Peppercorn: You're welcome.