Sunday Pick: Unsolicited Advice: How to handle layoffs with care | from Fixable
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Hey, TED Talks Daily listeners, I'm Elise Hu. Today, we have an episode of another podcast from the TED Audio Collective, handpicked by us for you. It's unfortunately a part of the news cycle that doesn't seem to end. Mass layoffs. When an organization lays people off, those who remain are often scrambling to find their footing in an environment that no longer feels stable. So today we're sharing a 2025 episode from our show Fixable, where hosts Frances Fry and Anne Morris try to set the record straight about what layoffs mean for an organization and the responsibility leaders have to own what went wrong. Whatever you're dealing with at work, Fixable is there to help, offering actionable insights to create meaningful change in your life and workplace.
Listen to Fixable wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have a problem you want fixed, call their hotline at 234-FIXABLE. That's 234-349-2253 to leave Anne and Francis a voicemail with your workplace problem. Learn more about the TED Audio Collective at audiocollective.ted.com. Now on to the episode right after a quick break.
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What is the impact of layoffs on remaining employees?
Welcome to Fixable from the TED Audio Collective. I'm your host, Anne Morris. And I'm your co-host, Frances Fry. This week, we're bringing you another edition of Unsolicited Advice, where we give advice to people who didn't ask us for it. Well, who's our lucky recipient today? Well, Frances, today's unsolicited advice isn't totally unsolicited. We want to address a question we see so often in our show inbox, which is what to do after your company experiences a layoff. Today, we want to talk to the people who have to pick up the pieces the next day. Senior leaders, managers, HR teams. Oh, we get this question all the time. All the time. Yeah, we've coached a lot of leaders and organizations through this one.
I also want to acknowledge that as we record this, there are whole public sector organizations and organizations that rely on government funding that are confronting large-scale layoffs and disruption right now as the Trump administration works to reshape government. For those of you listening out there who are impacted and looking for work, we're thinking about you and the people who depend on you. We hope you'll listen to our episode from last season on job seekers and find something there that is helpful to you. The headline on our advice is to not do this alone. Your real enemy right now is isolation. So build a community to help you get through this difficult time. You're going to get to the other side, we promise.
Absolutely. This kind of disruption to your life is a team sport.
And Frances, in a future episode, we hope to give unsolicited advice to the architects of these decisions. Surprising to no one, our point of view is that move fast and break things is not the right approach here. Does that mean we're going to give Elon advice? Yeah, we'd love to give Elon some advice and his boss and the Republican Party, because this is not just about one or two men at the top, which is how this story is being told. We gave advice to the Democratic Party last year, and it only seems fair to include our Republican friends as well.
I do love symmetry. It's just balanced. We're just going for fair and balanced, Frances.
I like it.
I like it.
In the meantime, today, we're going to talk to the people left holding the bag at any organization that's experiencing layoffs. We want to answer the question, where do you go from here? Let's get into it. All right, Francis, to put this conversation in context, if we look at tech as an illustrative example here, what seems to be happening is that after a spike in layoffs in the last few years, some companies are continuing to shed workers in 2025 and rethink exactly who they're going to need to compete in an AI world.
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