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will have to bring your leadership team on board early and employ them in end this may have actually slowed down the team’s momentum and limited
the actual termination process, since they will be needed to help deliver the progress on game projects that they were working on. An important note to
information. Most everyone should hear about it at the same time. In my clarify is that I implemented work sharing in January, two months before the
case, at my studio, I had my COO prepped for the event, but we both sat in the studio reached the point of impending closure. At that point, the goal was to
same room and let everyone know the situation together. retain employees as long as was necessary until the company could reach
Unpaid leave can buy you time. After notifying the team about the revenue generation.
funding problem, the next thing I did was put them on unpaid leave. Given the
extremely surprising nature of our shutdown, this allowed the studio to wind
down with a softer landing. The nature of unpaid leave is that it retains the termination
hope of resuming work within a short time period. This is useful if you know
you can’t pay people now, but you have high hopes that they can come back Leading up to the final date of March 31, I notified the
to work within a short period of time. In our case, we had high hopes that this parent company of our impending closure, and prepared
would happen. We had 15 days remaining in March—which meant 15 days of paperwork for the team in the event that I would have to
active benefits before I had to pay new insurance premiums for the staff. This terminate them. The key reason I could not keep them on
may be dependent on your state’s labor laws, though, so you’ll have to figure unpaid leave past March 31 was because I would have to
out what your specific situation requires of you. pay the premiums on all benefits for that next month, so
Work-sharing programs may soften the blow. In my case, California I had no choice but to terminate them if we could not find
had a statewide work-sharing program that can help employees on unpaid the funds to move forward. As it turned out, that is exactly
leave; if a company implements a reduction in wages or hours greater than what happened, so I issued termination notices to the team
10% each week, then the company can apply for work sharing on behalf of its via email (we didn’t need to call them back to the offices for
employees. The state then will pay partial unemployment benefits relative to that). The termination process requires the employee to fill
the percentage of wages that have been reduced. out a few different forms, which help the employee apply
While this doesn’t equal a 1:1 replacement for wages lost, it does allow for unemployment (and help the company cover its butt).
employees to receive unemployment benefits services before they are unemployed.
It also allows a company to try to retain employees rather than do immediate
layoffs to save money. The work sharing program even allows a slow ramp down of
wages/hours to permit a full 100 percent benefit while on work sharing. winding it all down
It’s important to note that while the goal of this was to supplement the lost At this point, I was the only employee left. I had deferred my resignation
wages, it also was a strategy to improve team morale. To make it even more in order to take care of all of the remaining issues of a closure. Despite
fair, we also initiated four day work-weeks. This was a blessing and a curse in having issued the termination notices, I wasn’t done yet. I still had to take
some ways. The goal was to again work to the employees’ benefit, but in the care of the bills, rent, benefits, and assets.

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