Nike's early layoff warning lets staff with other options leave before the list is drawn

Nike has now run a reduction both ways inside a year. When it said in April that it was eliminating about 1,400 roles, the people affected were to hear from their leaders and HR partners starting that same day ^[9]. Telling affected staff and the rest of the company on the same day is the usual practice ^[3]. The new announcement splits the two ^[1].

The record does not settle whether that gap is a severance tactic. Nike spokeswoman Mary Remuzzi said: "Some actions will occur over time and, in many locations, applicable local requirements and consultation processes will inform timing and execution" ^[10]. In at least some places, then, consultation rules set the calendar. The company-wide warning is a separate act. Federal and some state laws require advance written notice to employees who may be affected by a large layoff, and Nike, Meta and GitLab went further by alerting their whole workforces before choosing roles ^[13].

The severance case comes from employment attorney Kevin Zwetsch, who said companies that warn early could be looking for volunteer quitters, possibly to avoid severance payments and limit involuntary layoffs ^[19]. The trade-off, he said, is that "you may lose good people," meaning "people that you would not have picked as part of the restructuring" ^[20]. In my view this is the trade-off a board should weigh: management draws a cut list, while voluntary exits are drawn by whoever has an offer elsewhere ^[20]. The available reporting does not include figures for voluntary departures or for severance saved.

A skeptic would say a long warning is a courtesy, and part of that holds: a lengthy heads-up gives workers time to find a new job ^[17]. Sarah Rodehorst, cofounder and chief executive of Onwards HR, said staff who know they are at risk can also look for open roles elsewhere in the company ^[16]. Her condition is specificity. Flagging the departments, locations or roles most likely to be cut helps workers judge their risk, she said, and a vague warning can create "a lot of anxiety" across a company ^[15]. By that test, Nike's announcement is the vague kind ^[4]. Chief executive Elliott Hill wrote, "I want to acknowledge that news like this creates uncertainty" ^[5].

The advice employees get during the wait points them outward. Career coaches and HR professionals say going above and beyond generally does not help, while disengaging can give the company a reason to add someone to the layoff roster ^[18]. "Working harder in the final weeks won't move the needle," Laszlo Bock, formerly Google's head of human resources, told Business Insider; he said employees are often better off networking and lining up their next move ^[14].

For Nike, the decision this quarter is to announce early ^[1]. The consequence arrives when role decisions begin, by which point the voluntary leavers Zwetsch described will already have made their choice ^[19]. The company is attempting a turnaround with its shares down about 46% year to date ^[8], and it expects revenue to fall by a high-single-digit percentage this fiscal year ^[7].