Imagine, hypothetically, that you are the head of a massive technology company.  You decide one day that you want to layoff, say, 50 percent of the workforce tomorrow while offering employees a severance agreement. What should you know?

My colleagues, Gabe Jiran and Keegan Drenosky, did a whole webinar on the subject last month that

Lately, I’ve been talking with more employers about permanent reductions in force.

It’s not fun.

And it’s not something I thought we’d be talking about 3 months ago, and yet it’s not foreign to me either.

In fact, I spent several of my earliest posts here on this exact topic. 

As I talk with employers

In the last few months, I’ve had some inquiries from employers asking about resources for layoffs.

Yawn.

Everyone remembers the layoffs of the recession, right?

Actually no, as it turns out.

In the ten years since the last great round of layoffs, there is a big group of new managers, directors, human resource personnel, lawyers

Suppose you have to terminate an employee who is over the age of 40 and you decide to offer that employee a separation agreement.

(I’ve previously covered the “standard” provisions in an agreement here and discussed a 2009 EEOC Guidance on the subject here.)

You already know (right?) that releases for employees over