About a week ago, I learned that my company was going to have imminent layoffs (think 2-3 weeks) through a friend in HR.
It’s not a surgical thing but more of a cost slashing exercise. Hiring freeze and cutting ~500 positions. Across the board cuts for the office.
When I heard this, I reached out to my network of recruiters to see what might be available and I have 5 interviews next week. All come with a raise in base salary as I have been lazy about job hopping and I can probably negotiate the salary higher as that is the base. Even if I get none of them, I have two years of savings and live cheaply. Senior software engineers will land somewhere.
My co-worker is less experienced. He’s an intermediate who retrained from another career. As a result he is older, has a family, a house, a pile of medical bills for his sick wife, etc. He has mentioned a few times of getting into payday loans over it. I helped him set up a convoluted cash flow management system a couple months ago.
I don’t actually know who is going and who is staying regarding the layoffs, but I’m ready with my parachute. I want to inform my boss that if the cost cutting requirement hits us, she should cut me over this guy.
Problem is, I am not sure who knows about the layoffs. The company sequestered HR away at a secondary location to plan them. My friend obviously was not supposed to tell me (the communication was offsite in a way that nobody would know). I am not even sure my boss knows or whether she would just be required to list people to be whacked.
My current scheme would be to refer my boss to a recruiter friend, tell them why she is available, who would then reach out to her and note that in their outreach. I I’ll say I got such a note as well.
Second option is an anonymous email to 50 different people in the organization. Provide sufficient proof that I know the building and such, and let the gossip network spread the info.
If I had any evidence beyond my friends word, I would inform the local media.
In either case, I have my opening to say “protect Tom (not real name), not me.”
I don’t know if quitting now would solve the problem because it seems like a cut in existing costs, so if I am off the salary table, there may still need to be a cut.
I’m basically looking for any other strategies I might use.
My priorities:
- Making sure that the leak of information can’t be sent back to my HR friend (we don’t hang out at work or anything) or be blamed on my boss. I’ll fess up if required and say I overhead a conversation, but I’m not facing the CIA here. I haven’t done anything on company networks.
- Protecting Tom and helping him keep his job, at least until he can seamlessly transition to a new one.
- Ideally getting away with my severance check for being “laid off.” Free money!