Botched layoff announcements have blown up online with many of those meetings now conducted virtually and as more staff take to social media to publicize their experiences.

Former CloudFlare employee Brittany Pietsch went viral earlier this month posting a nearly 10-minute long video of her layoff. In a Zoom call without her manager but just Pietsch and an HR representative, she learned she was losing her job for not meeting performance expectations. She pressed for further details that weren’t given. In other cases online, workers have reported logging into their work laptops to find they no longer have access, or they simply receive an email with the news.

Workplace experts say it doesn’t have to be like this, and there are more compassionate ways to tell staff about job losses. Doing so is crucial (to avoid bad PR) but even more so to ensure remaining employees don’t end up demoralized and resentful.

“Despite the fact that we live in a place where a lot of your workforce might be remote, it’s still very possible and doable to do this in as compassionate a way as possible,” said Jesse Meschuk, a senior advisor for Exequity with more than 20 years in consulting and human resources.

Layoffs can have a major long-term impact on remaining employees and company culture depending on how they are carried out. A recent analysis from Revelio Labs analyzed employees’ online reviews following layoffs at certain companies to gauge sentiments in the months afterward and found wide discrepancies.

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