Pre-Layoff Preparation

Everyone should be prepared for RIFs:

These commments are mostly obvious to all, maybe a few good ideas:

Have a copy of your contact list (email address, phone numbers) for anyone you'll want to keep in contact with (so you can commiserate with them on the next layoff / furlough.
Make hardcopies of anything you want to guarantee future access to ...
Ensure you have removed any and all private information from your work computer.
One should load and run the free version "CCleaner" (https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner) and set it to wipe the unused portions of youd computer's hard drive. Note to anyone who doesn't know, deleting a file just wipes its name from the computer's file list, the file contents remain until eventually overwritten by any new data / files saved to disk (days, weeks, months later). This leaves fully or partially recoverable portions of data on the disk (easily recoverable, no IT expertise required).
Ensure you know how to access your 401K , medical, and pension plan info from home.

Note that, semi-obviously, your access passwords to these sites will be defeated the day you leave.

Note that it will take some efforts, time, and multiple phone calls through OneStop (should be named Multi-Stop) to get a new password set up, AND they will only be able to mail it to you. It has happened (to me and others) that the new password was sent to my work email (even though I told them several times I had been laid off). When a week had gone by and I still didn't receive the password by mail (USPS snail mail), I called in, and they said they had sent the email to my work email, it was only good for 24 hours after the original request, and they would have to send it by mail (as I had originally requested).

A week later, I got the envelope, it had the password that had expired 2 weeks before at the intial request.

One more call to OneStop, and only one week later, I finally got a useable password (Hooray! Only took 3 weeks)

Clear out / reduce personal items from your work area, a good idea these days anyway, and it will reduce the effort on the day of layoffs.
Deposit any and all papers, work notes, calculations, hardcopies of emails etc. into the locked burn barrels.

All of this material just becomes a liabilty if one is laid off. Don't give anything there / anyone rummaging around in your cubicle in your absence a chance to create a headache after you are laid off.

Get commitments from each other to buy beer for anyone who gets laid off.

Good luck, everyone.

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Anyone who has left Honeywell can access their benefits here:

www.resources.hewitt.com/honeywell

All you need is name and the last 4 of your social to create your account. I just quit and used this to manage pension, 401K, and health benefits. No need to call anyone or wait on Honeywell.

You will also get a package in the mail with information on COBRA (health coverage until you find a new job) and life insurance gap coverage that will also list the above website. I think you have 60 days from when coverage is lost to enroll. Then you have 45 days to pay. If you don't pay it will be cancelled at the end of those 45 days. However, once you enroll and make your initial payment, coverage is retroactive to the date your coverage ended.

2kaf-Well said, and well taken. Thanks for the post.

To everyone with the guillotine over their head - hang in there, things will get better. I hope you can find some inspiration from my post-Honeywell experience.

I was laid off last year around this time, just blindsided. After the shock wore off from the gut punch, I got back up and decided to focus the energy from my anger into finding something better. Looking back a year later, it was the best thing that ever happened to me career wise:

Three months off to relax, do home projects, volunteer, spend extra time with kids and just clear my head
I found that companies valued my HW experience and one hired me at higher position and pay, despite not having a posted job
I was able to put the last three months of severance into savings
No more EEI, yield, HOS, HPD,rack n stack and all the other bureaucratic BS
Work from home
Company is growing and actually values me as a technical contributor and human being
Being at a smaller, non-siloed company, I am involved at a level that I never would have been at Honeywell
If our growth projections come to fruition, I plan to hire a few people from you know where

Honestly I wake up Monday morning looking forward to starting work. You all have value and great experience, don't let this crap company get the best of you.

Go out classy, don't destroy property, reformat drives etc. We know this stinks continually proping up the stock out of the hides of the employees. But besides looking bad on your own morals you can lose any layoff benefits and or unemployment benefits if you don't get a job during severance.

Think about how a potential future employer hears you did that on the way out. That news travels fast in the grapevine.

Be respectful if you get a chance to send a goodbye email. You may need good words for a future job. Don't cut your own nose to spite your face..

Don't forget the all important format c:/ before you go to meet your manager

Better to transport all bulky personal items (books, binders, knick-knacks) out of the office in advance of a layoff, however remote that possibility is. It will be more dignified if the remainder of your stuff will fit in a satchel. Having to walk out with a cardboard box full of stuff is so not cool. Best wishes if the ax does fall; it is always a shock.

Great post, very helpful. Also have your farewell email ready to hit send with home email, especially people u have not seen in a while. Easier then for people to get in touch with you. Those laid off and those remaining.

PST files just do a search of your hard drive with letters PST and you can see the various ones you named for personal files and copy those personal ones you set up. IF you get chance to hit send, but go out classy in the email.

Weekend and Monday people will be busy with personal items. Not expecting a lot of work to be done while people wait it out.

"as soon as you are RIF'd you can no longer apply for internal Honeywell openings, " This is what really gets me ...... we get no respect what so ever. I remember way back (Sperry days) , when there's a RIF the manager actually go to the person saying that you picked and arranges with other plant for that person to go an opening if that person wants the position Example : go from Glendale to Deer Valley.

Also they now do not have recall list . And push you out the door before all all the paper work is done. Also I remember coming to Sperry we, engineers got overtime pay ......so you HR trolls Do not give me garbage about salary (exempts) !

Last week I had a local manager complain to me when I mentioned out start EE just quit. He could not understand " why the hated ? " He is clueless and the rest of Honeywell management does not care !

In addition as soon as you areRIF'd you can no longer apply for internal Honeywell openings, however if you send in your resume on Monday (the RIF is expected to be this Tuesday am) to all internal Honeywell openings you may be interested in, you will be eligible!

I do have some personal emails in my outlook. Nothing prohibitive but medical related. Do you a link or an idea on how to copy my outlook personal(not company) .pst files so I can use them on my computer at home?

This is helpful to me(even though I will probably not get RIf'd). I am 54 with 30 years in. Who knows at this point. But I appreciate you taking the time to lay it out.

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Pre-Layoff Preparation

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