Timing, culture and clarity all matter when considering holiday layoffs, says expert, offering tips for HR
As Canadian employers edge into the 2025 holiday season, layoff headlines are again colliding with festive messaging as major employers such as Bell and most recently Algoma Steel announce major layoffs just ahead of the holidays.
Against that backdrop, HR leaders might be wondering about a common conundrum: If layoffs are unavoidable, is it better to act before Christmas or wait until the New Year?
While there are benefits and consequences for both, employers should focus less on timing and more on strategy, according to Peter Tingling, associate professor of management information systems at Simon Fraser University.
“There's only one day that you ever want to let somebody go, and that's the day before they were going to resign anyway,” he says.
“In which case, you just gave them a $50,000 or $100,000 kiss goodbye, and they're very happy.”
Why HR should avoid layoffs in December
While there may not be an explicitly “good” time to lay off employees, Tingling says, there are some times that are worse.
He notes that employers often know for some time that reductions are coming but cannot share that information early. Even so, he believes HR and leadership teams should think hard about the specific harms associated with December layoff announcements.
“December is one of the worst times,” he says, pointing to several factors such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), financial pressures from holiday spending and the impact on families and children who associate the season with celebration rather than job loss: “Depending on where you are, it's not a particularly nice time of the year.”
Planning, culture and ‘cutting once’
Even while flagging December as especially problematic, Tingling returns to the principle of giving employees as much lead time as possible – organizations should balance avoiding the worst possible timing with the need to provide sufficient notice, he says, so that employees can plan next steps, apply for other roles and access supports.
“There's never a good time, but you really want to give people as much notice as you possibly can.”
Beyond dates, Tingling argues that organizations need a clear workforce strategy anchored in future needs. Rather than applying blunt percentage cuts across departments, he suggests leaders adopt a “zero-based” view of their teams and focus on the few roles that are truly critical to the business model and its future direction.
To achieve this, he advises employers to envision starting from scratch with no workforce, then think about which of their current employees they would definitely hire back in that situation. “Which ones would you keep? Which ones do you want to go to bat for?”
He adds that a company’s culture will influence whether employees see layoffs as a one-off correction or the beginning of a prolonged period of uncertainty; the way the first wave is handled can set expectations for everything that follows.
“Is this going to be the death of 1,000 cuts?” he says, explaining that employers should be able to plan effectively enough to avoid employees wondering if they will be next.
“Ideally, what you want to do is measure twice and cut once … the last thing you want to have is waves upon the beach, ‘Okay, we're going to fire X number of people, and then six weeks later we go through it again, and in 12 weeks we're going to do it again.’”
Post-layoff employee communication
Tingling highlights the hits that poorly timed cuts can make to morale, productivity and retention long after the initial announcement.
Remaining staff will have “survival” concerns, he says, and will look for signals that leaders have a coherent plan. To this end, employers should anticipate questions from those who stay and be prepared to explain how the organization will operate with a smaller workforce.
“Given an ideal set of circumstances, you want to be clear that you have a plan, because after you let people go, you're going to have a sense of survival issues,” he says.
“It's really about shrinking your way to greatness. What it's about is allocating your workforce in a particular way so that you're optimized for the future, so that you have the competencies that you need.
