Pre-layoff activities

Being laid off comes as a shock, no matter how much you suspect or fear that it is coming. Even the best of us can lose their presence of mind. Here is a list of things I did, or wish I had done, prior to leaving.

Use MyW4 (drop-down from My Payslip on Circuit) to modify your deductions so that less federal tax is withheld from your final payslips. Your severance and any sabbatical payout are taxed at an emergency rate of 25% regardless, but you may as well trim back the federal withholding on your last payslips. Crank up your allowances to >10, and obviously cease any additional withholding you may have volunteered for.
While you are in My Payslip save (print to PDF, whatever) whichever payslips you do not have copies of. The most recent for sure.
Adjust your FSA contributions. While you are employed (i.e. prior to your termination date) you can incur qualifying expenses up to the annual figure. If you elect $2500 but you have only contributed $6 you can still claim up to $2500 and do not need to reimburse Intel, but the date of service must be before termination. Otherwise, you may elect FSA continuance as part of COBRA and contribute after-tax dollars, but the best free money comes from getting that dental or vision work done before the termination date.
Adjust DCAP. The calculation uses the remaining pay periods to Dec 31 to make up the difference between what you have paid in until now and what you elect. You may only get 2 more pay periods so you will not reach your election, but increasing the election results in an accelerated pre-tax contribution while it lasts. You may make claims for any date of service the same tax year.
Adjust 401(k). Depending on your own cash-flow and prior contributions you may wish to wind it up or down for your last 2 pay periods. You can only pay in from your pay so once you leave you are stuck until you find new employment, and who knows what their 401k policy would be.
Take advantage of any Intel benefits. Movie ticket voucher discounts, HomeWare software, chip-loaner, etc etc. All that stuff you put off until later.
Copy your personal stuff off your PC.
Deregister iTunes account; DropBox, Box, password management, etc. You may not have time to do this later.
Create a new Outlook PST and copy anything you will find useful into it and then off the PC. You can drag/drop copy from online PST etc. At the least you will want to reference email addresses, names, etc of projects over your career once you start to network.
Anything else you think is useful on your PC. Not to distribute, but good to reference prior to job interviews to refresh your recollections. You get the idea.
Set an out of office which is meaningful and professional ready to go. You will not be able to edit it later so don't write anything negative or which you will regret. Your life is going to be all about networking so contact details.
Thin out your cube of personal stuff.
Photographs of important HR communications. You may not be able to access them later. Focal statements, patent applications, 360 feedback from years gone by. You will want to reference those later for resume building, interview prep.
Not sure if this still applies, but any unexercised stock options void on your termination date so exercise them if they are above water.
There is a layoff appeal process. Some have been fortunate. Depending on your circumstances may be worth getting a written statement from your management chain to declare L4/L5/L3, bonus target figure, etc not performance related. Who knows criteria next time around. Get assurance if you can from your focal manager that they will support you in appeal. Written and attached to appeal form is best. After you are gone you fade from view and are easier to ignore.
If you are close to retirement print out the policy manual. You may want to refer to that.
Maybe take photos, copies, etc of anything about diversity initiatives, RCG hiring, stuff of a political nature which you may need if you take legal advice later. YMMV. Anyway, you cannot get access later so if you think it is useful to your case or state of mind grab it.
All those big print jobs. Your kids' curriculum, electronic text books, etc etc. Use Intel toner not your own ink.
If you have used your Intel email address anywhere consider using your personal address. Esp logins where any password reset would go to the Intel address.
If you have a MSDN subscription, you know what to do...
Change mailing address for mag subscriptions to your home address, email, phone. It is useful to stay in the game if you still get the free industry insider mags for whatever you do. Do it now - some publishers will insist on sending confirmation links to your Intel email that need to be clicked on.

Maybe others will comment with additional ideas.

Comment! It's anonymous!

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Guys really what should we do about MSDN!?

What is to do with MSDN!! Please tell!

Love the post ... printed it !!!

Couple of adds

1) catch up on expense reports

2) print important tax info (spp history for example)

MSDN for the win

Hahaha... great post. But I already knew almost one week ahead. So, I cleaned out my office and did everything I could. So, there were no surprise for me at all. And when the HR person asked me if I would need to get anything, "Nope, are we done?", I said. Hey, I am being pro-active LOL.

Great, but after 20 years they gave me 30' .. like I had time to get things in work order.

The company don't give a f--- about you.

Thank you for the post. This is very informative and helpful.

Also in my paystub goto recommended actions and choose mail my paystub option so you don't need to call HR to get that active.

Don't agree with printing larger personal documents on Intel's ink.

Seems like stealing to me.

Going to get an some toilet paper while you're at ir?

W4 Election (1): It is only Intel's payroll processor that sees the W4 form. You can put any number of allowances on there you want. (NB: the W4 is in terms of allowances, not dependents). Even the W4's own instructions encourage you to choose the number of allowances to fit your own withholding needs. The number of allowances you declare is only used by the employer to calculate the employer's federal tax withholding. The W4 is not forwarded to the IRS. It is up to the tax payer (you) to make sure the withholding, any estimated payments, and your other federal tax payments meet your annual obligations. I am suggesting that by increasing the number of W4 allowances you can reduce the amount of federal withholding for those remaining pay periods and this will offset the high rate of withholding mandated on your lump sum (severance and sabbatical) payouts. Otherwise, you may be lending the federal government an unnecessarily large amount of money at zero interest until you get a refund next year. [Reminder: I am an anonymous internet idiot, not a tax advisor. Do your own math and understand your own situation].

DCAP (4): If you intended to contribute the max in the calendar year it is not possible to increase the per pay period contributions to put away more than you would. For folks contributing less than the max per year increasing the annual contribution limit will increase the contribution from your remaining pay. Hewitt simply use the formula DCAP-per-payperiod = (Requested Annual Contrib - Contrib so far) / remaining pay periods until 12/31. Whatever you can get into the DCAP before your end date is yours to spend that tax year against qualifying expenses. There is no discernible merit in continuing DCAP into COBRA since your COBRA contributions (from your own bank account) are after-tax money and just the same as giving it directly to your care provider.

Homeware (6): Yes, technically you are supposed to surrender the Homeware when you leave Intel. Practically, no one cares or tracks it. Certainly no one rescinds the license.

FSA (3): Additional info. If you turn up the contributions while still at Intel then you can put away more of your pre-tax money (similar to DCAP) and reduce your taxable income on your W2. Say you had elected $400 last open enrollment, you were laid off in April and May 31 was your termination date. Normally by May 31 you would have put away 10/24th of $400 (=$166.67). You would have been able to incur $400 reimbursable expenses provided that the date of service was on or before May 31. IF you had promptly increased your FSA to $2500 and had 2 more pay periods you would have funded your FSA with (8/24th $400) + (2500-8/24*400)/16 * 2 = $429.17 of pre-tax dollars. You would have until termination date to claim up to all of that $2500 election. If you did not continue the FSA into COBRA at your own after-tax expense all of that FSA contribution would be inaccessible except for claims with a date-of-service before May 31. IF you continue the FSA into COBRA then the totality of your annual election is claimable, not just what you contributed. BUT you do need to keep contributing after-tax dollars because Intel does not keep up your FSA contributions for you. You can turn down your annual election after your termination date, to say contribute $1 twice a month (do the math) - then you retain access to your FSA contributions for any claim even those after termination date. [Just tell Hewitt you have a qualifying change in circumstances to allow them to make the switch, or make the switch online]. There are lots of games to play, especially if you have control over when qualifying claims will have a date of service, and vision & dental are mostly elective dates.

Two accountants have told me NOT to go over declaring 9 dependants as it's an automatic red flag....this was over a decade ago, so had it changed?

The Homeware page says the software reverts to Intel once you leave. Do you know otherwise for sure?

McAfee is the only exception.

Thank you . Best post of all the posts I've read.

So OP , for DCAP there is no way to hit the max $5K before leaving ? Thanks for the post , very useful .

Thanks OP! Your list is much more useful & comprehensive than HRs.

Thanks for sharing...very informative ;)

For 14, stock options: you have either the original option date or 90 days after termination, which ever is sooner.

Funny I do most of this normally. I don't fret about losing my job but I am always prepared if I do.

Very useful post. Thanks for sharing.

-soon to be ex-Intel employee

Thread regarding Intel Corp. layoffs

Pre-layoff activities

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