No employer wants to ever consider having to lay off a large portion of their workforce — but it happens. In 2019, alone, we’ve already seen major layoffs from large companies like General Motors, Buzzfeed and, most recently, the final white-collar cuts by Ford. Smaller organizations like local factories, school districts, or even fire departments have also had to let a significant number of employees go.

Sometimes, layoffs can’t be avoided in order to keep the company afloat. But whenever possible, employers should offer displaced employees the best severance packages and support they can. It’s important to show you care for their well-being. After all, many of these individuals have given years to your organization.

The question then becomes: what’s the best way to support displaced employees? To find that answer, you need to understand the greatest worries of displaced workers. Then, find ways to alleviate the specific fears of your displaced workforce with a severance package that offers more than a modest payout.

Here are three typical — and understandable — concerns of laid-off employees you need to consider when determining the offerings of your severance packages:

Right now, unemployment is the lowest it’s been in over a decade. In fact, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 3.9 percent of Americans were out of work at the end of 2018 and those record lows have maintained through the first quarter of 2019. While this is great news for employees, employers are having an incredibly hard time finding qualified candidates.

Many employers are failing to attract talent right from the beginning of their hiring process. They’re not paying enough attention to their job descriptions. And as a result, job seekers are ignoring the company’s available opportunities.

Having great job descriptions means more than updating the information about the role. You also need to craft them in a way that gains skilled job seekers’ interest and trust. If you want to successfully attract talent, it’s time to learn more about how job seekers interpret job descriptions and what are their expectations.

Here are four secrets to making your job descriptions more appealing to candidates:

Last month, the news broke that a group of wealthy parents had been paying extravagant sums of money to cheat the college application system and get their children into top schools. The scandal and the surrounding sense of entitlement have some employers questioning whether a college degree is still a good signifier that a young person would be a good employee.

Yes, this story has revealed some unscrupulous people involved in college admission, but that doesn’t mean you should lose your trust in colleges and their abilities to prepare students for the workforce. In fact, deciding not to recruit college students can hurt your organization.

Here are four reasons you should still value college degrees:

Employers have always competed to hire the best and brightest new graduates. Bringing young talent on board gives companies a surge of fresh ideas and perspectives. While new grads might lack years of acquired wisdom and experience, they are excited to make an impact at a company they believe in.

But each year, as college graduations approach, there’s one consistent problem: how do employers evaluate untested employees?

Many employers develop a method for assessing new graduates over years of trial and error. But leaders at startups, often, don’t have the time or knowledge to figure these issues out. These employers need young talent now.

Luckily, new research revealed there is a science behind hiring new graduates. In fact, a Gallup study released last month found there are six key college experiences tied to workplace preparedness. The more of these specific experiences graduates had, the more confident they were about their ability to succeed in their first job. The experiences include:

• Believing their professors care about them as a person
• Having at least one professor who excites them about learning
• Having a mentor who encourages them to pursue their goals and dreams
• Partaking in an internship that allows them to use what they learn in the classroom
• Working on a project that took longer than a semester to complete
• Being extremely active in extracurricular activities

For inexperienced employers, it might be unclear why these experiences are essential for workplace success or even how to assess them during the hiring process. Let’s take a look at a few of these experiences and what they reveal about new graduates:

Chances are you’ve spent the last decade trying to get to know and understand millennials. This generation is unlike any other and it has taken much longer to figure out their priorities and professional needs. This has likely forced you to rethink your employer brand and present it in a way that appeals to younger talent in recent years.

And now that you’re all warmed up, it’s time to make further adjustments to your employer brand because Generation Z is about to take over.

In fact, according to research from Bloomberg, in 2019, Generation Z will become the largest living generation. People born after 1995 will make up 32 percent of the population and the majority of them are joining the workforce.

The trouble is many employers mistakenly assume there are enough similarities between millennials and Gen Zers they don’t need to update their employer brand. Don’t risk repeating the same errors made with the millennial generation. By understanding the specific characteristics of Gen Z, you can recraft your employer brand so it speaks to this generation while still being true to the company’s identity and attract top talent faster.

Healthcare. Technology. Startups, in general. There are some industries where the competition to be the top company is insanely high. These organizations move at an exciting pace and are at the forefront of trends that are changing the world. Because of this, working for these companies is invigorating.

It’s also more difficult for job seekers to break into these industries. Employers are more selective when assessing job seekers because employees in these fields need to work twice as effectively and efficiently. If you want to transition into a highly-competitive industry, you cannot simply approach the job search the traditional way.  

Here are three tips to help you stand out as a job seeker in a competitive industry:

Let’s be honest: this is not a good time for employee retention. In fact, a report from the Labor Department found that 3.3 million people willingly left their job in May of this year. That’s the highest percentage of employees to quit since April 2001.

For companies that are already having a hard time filling open positions, this is terrible news. Now you need to double down on both talent acquisition and employee retention. Otherwise, given all the great employment opportunities that are currently out there, even passive job seekers will start to leave your organization.

To keep your team members happy, you need to understand what they’re currently missing from their job. By making these changes, employees will be less likely to say yes when another job offer comes their way.

Here are three ways to keep passive job seekers from leaving:

When millennials entered the workforce, they rocked the foundations of most organizations. The generation was so unlike those before that it took leaders and HR professionals longer to get a handle on these new employees.

Now, Generation Z is graduating college and starting their careers. Unsurprisingly, this has many older employees worried.

In fact, the 2018 Job Seeker Nation survey from Jobvite found that 27 percent of respondents feel threatened by Generation Z. If you’re not careful, this tension will turn your company culture toxic.

To help Gen Z transition smoothly into the workforce, HR professionals need to get ahead of this situation now. You need to find ways to get all employees to collaborate in a multigenerational workplace.

Here are three tips for getting older employees to not only accept, but also embrace Generation Z in the workplace:

Travel to the beach. Attend family reunion barbeques. Go camping in the mountains. Chain yourself to your desk at work.

When you think of summertime, one of these activities doesn’t fit. However, employees are increasingly nervous about taking paid time off for a summer vacation. They have qualms about whether or not their employer actually supports them taking time off.

In fact, the recently released 2018 State of the American Vacation report from Project: Time Off found that 62 percent of employees feel their company sends mixed messages about taking vacation time. Because getting out of the office isn’t expressly encouraged, 52 percent of employees report having unused vacation days at the end of the year.

Help employees this summer by changing the way your organization approaches time off. These are the do’s and don’ts of supporting employees during vacations:

This post was updated in September 2022