I've heard the opposite. You lay off on a Monday so you have 5 business days to call recruiters. You give a promotion or bonus on a Friday so the employee can celebrate on the weekend and won't slack off the rest of the week.

This feels like the area of advice where you can probably concoct a narrative that supports any particular day of the week. :D

You fire on Wednesday because that lets them have a long weekend to relax.

Promote on Saturday so that they're not distracted on a workday.

I believe this was a joke in 1999's Office Space.

Specifically: incompetent bosses mis-citing a study supposedly saying it's a good idea to fire at the end of the week.

I’m speculating. Perhaps this practice is common because it keeps the books clean on final payouts. Plus it allows the employee to finish any projects they’re working on during the week. Not 100% sure though.

> Plus it allows the employee to finish any projects they’re working on during the week. Not 100% sure though.

I'm not sure I'd count on an employee that's being laid off to really put in the effort to finish up his projects ;)

That’s the point, you don’t tell them until Friday.

What difference does a Friday have vs a Monday if the person isn’t comming back to the office?

Maybe your remembering giving as news on a Friday so it gets lost by the media over the weekend?

I'd consider it more of a respectful gesture to the person being laid off so that they have the weekend to take it all in so they're able to start their job search on Monday and make the most of the next week, should they be in a situation where they need to.

Everywhere I’ve worked, unless someone was walked out the door, it happened early in the week and they were paid to the end of the week before their severance package even began. If you’re going to lose your job, having most of a fully paid week to take it in helps soften the landing.

Layoffs on Friday are awful. People have lives. They have appointments and kids’ soccer practice and grocery shopping and such. Now they have to reconcile that they’re unemployed during those tasks?

I’d call that respectful. Well, as respectful as you can be when you lay someone off.

I mean, you're laid off the weekend vs midweek are now identical from your perspective.

Infact its better to get laid off early in the week, now you can do other tasks that are easier to do mid week as opposed to the weekend.

The person laid off can "take things in" just as easily mid week as they can on the weekend.

It's about not bringing a gun into work and "going postal" (named after a situation with a post office employee)

Why would that be a more likely situation if you’re escorted out of the building on a Friday than it would be on a Tuesday?

So I'm a little confused. This whole thread implies that in the States you get laid off and ushered out of the building on the same day? Is that common practice?

I understand that most(?) Of the US is an "at will" jurisdiction, but where I'm from all employment contracts have a notice period in them. So when employment is terminated, by either party, there is a 2-4 week period where the employee works out their notice.

Often in the case of lay offs there would be plenty of heads up before the official notice period as well.

Only in the most egregious cases of misconduct could an employer get away without a notice period.

Getting laid off and shown the door immediately after (plus having your access to systems and buildings revoked) is very common.

The reason for this is because the HR person drafting this policy probably had someone take advantage of the window between when someone is told they are laid off and when they are actually terminated, and so the policy gets made to reduce that liability. It sucks for the 90% of people who wouldn't do anything, but that's how it works. Imagine getting told you're your laid off, then your laptop handed in before you even leave the meeting room, then a security guard or HR person escorts you to your desk to pack your things in a box before they walk you out the building.

Mind you, you'd probably still get some severance bonus or keep getting paid for weeks or months, but you just wouldn't be expected (or able) to work.

I dunno, as a European that sounds absolutely mental to me. How about transfer of knowledge and ownership of projects?

Layoffs usually mean something is wrong with the company or division. Zillow is laying off tons of employees after making bad decisions. Knowledge transfer is less important than survival (apparently).

In the U.S. sometimes your first hint of an impending layoff is when you're asked to train your replacement. And sometimes the layoff means the project you were working on is being cancelled. My own most recent experience is that the project wasn't cancelled, but it was pared back to life support.

In the USA a layoff is usually a euphemism for termination with cause that can’t be supported in court. Because of the general litigiousness and at-will nature of most employment contracts here it usually means the employer offers a token severance payment in exchange for signing a general release.

Every layoff I've been subject to (four of them) involved a large number of people, and were related to declining business or transfer of business activity to another division. And my last layoff resulted in a significant severance package. Not sure the claim of "usually" can be substantiated.

Where I’ve worked what you’ve describing is called a reorganization.

Many years ago I worked at a company that had many rounds of RIF (reductions in force). We always did them on Friday - people would be called in for their exit interview and IT removed their access while it happened. We were based in the US but had offices in the UK.

Because of labor laws in the UK, HR did everything they could to avoid laying off the UK office staff because the process and cost was prohibitive. We kept people in the UK office for years just because it would have been a pain in the butt to remove them even if they were redundant or basically had no tasking.

Completely true about the UK part. We have colleague that is slacking off for last 6 months (after furlough) and management is not doing anything as process is quite complicated. We are all waiting as he has some plans to leave in mid Jan to do MBA.

Quite a few US tech firms will also immediately walk the employee out of the building when the employee expresses their intention to resign, and a few will even preemptively fire you as you give your notice to avoid paying you for a 2 week notice period. I know folks who won't give notice when they resign anymore, because this has happened to them several times.

Name and shame them, please, this practice needs to be called out to prospective employees.

I think this is indeed common in the US.

No one's in the office Saturday and Sunday.

A Friday shit-can means you have to keep the rage up and avoid letting rationale thought take hold for a few _days_ before the opportunity for a shooting spree at work is available. And chances are you've got a support network that'll be available Fri/Sat night to go have a drink and bitch with.

A Tuesday shit-can means less support network (it's a work night for everyone else) and everyone you want to murder back in the office less than 24 hours later.

I'm not taking a position here, but I can see a definite difference between a Tuesday and a Friday lay-off.

Many people have weekend off. This includes friends, lived ones, family, thus, a layoff on Friday, can mean time spend with these people instead of sitting home alone on a weekday, mad?

Postal, or just depressed with the news, in may help to have higher odds for the comfort of others.

Because in a traditional 9-5 M-F office, no one will be there Saturday and Sunday.

I know anecdata is worthless, but we're coming up on the anniversary of my latest layoff so it's still fresh in my mind. It was Nov. 9, a Monday. And of course I wasn't alone.

Going postal wasn't an option, everybody was working remote. I had to bring my work computer back to the office, and I had less hassle than I expected getting access to my desk to pack my personal belongings.