Letting go even one employee is disruptive, and the more employees that are impacted, the more disruptive – and more public – it can be. No matter how legitimate the decision is, layoffs can have far-reaching impacts for an organization and its workforce, including impacts on culture, employee satisfaction, and reputation.

They're also more public than ever. There are regular posts from employees on social media and tracking websites detailing the grizzly nature of some less-than-ideal layoffs, leading to messy publicity and scrutiny, as the CEOs of Better.com and Hypersocial, dubbed the "Crying CEO" have learned.

An organization's layoff approach can minimize these potential risks while easing the transition of those being separated from the organization along with those that remain.

Here are four essential strategies that companies and senior executives should follow to make layoffs smoother, avoid bad publicity, reduce internal tension, and set displaced employees up for success.

1. Learn from experience.

Layoffs should serve as a learning experience for organizations. If this isn't your first layoff, reflect on the steps taken to manage the prior action. This reflection can help reshape the company's strategies and approaches.

If this is the first time you're facing this situation, do your research to learn from other's missteps, but also those that have successfully navigated layoffs.

As a best practice, you should engage human resources and legal teams early, plus outplacement consultants, should you offer this support (which you should).

2. Offer outplacement support.

Providing outplacement services supports affected employees get back on their feet quickly. But it has many other benefits, too.

Outplacement support reduces unemployment costs by reducing the time separated employees are without work, increases (remaining) employee morale, lowers the risks of negative responses from impacted employees, and improves the company's reputation. In fact, 83% of Americans said offering outplacement services to laid-off employees would improve their opinion of the organization.

Outplacement services like resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and interview preparation help employers improve their value proposition by demonstrating genuine care for their employees' future.

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