Options to Layoff
• Transfers and demotions
If a department needs to reduce staff to achieve budget savings, it will first consider options that don’t involve layoffs. These options may include allowing employees to reduce their time base, job sharing, voluntary personal leave, partial service retirement, and unpaid leaves of absence. Departments also are likely to reduce their use of intermittent and non-permanent workers.
However, to achieve the entire savings necessary, departments may need to implement additional options, described below.
Voluntary Transfer: Your department may encourage employees to voluntarily transfer to vacant positions within your department or agency to reduce staffing.
Transfers (generally to jobs within the same classification) may or may not involve a change of residence. Normally, a voluntary transfer involving a change of residence doesn’t entitle you to relocation expenses. However, to encourage voluntary transfers, some employers may offer partial reimbursement through the meet-and-confer process.
Involuntary transfer: Departments may transfer an employee to a position that has been vacated by the layoff of a less senior employee. Such involuntary transfers involve changing jobs within the same classification in your department, but the job may be in a different location. If you’re required to change residence, you get 60 days notice rather than 30 days and reimbursement for relocation expenses.
The most common method of selecting employees for involuntary transfer is through seniority. (Check your bargaining unit contract for specifics.) In some cases, the decision may be based on the need to relocate an employee with specific skills within the same general class to a different geographic location.
Involuntary demotion: An employee who is otherwise facing layoff may demote to a lower classification if he or she has sufficient seniority. The demotion would be to a lower class in that series or a closely related class, or a lower class in a different line of work in which the employee has served in a permanent or probationary status.
If you’re demoted in lieu of layoff to a job in a new location, and it will require a change of residence, you may be entitled to relocation expenses.
Layoff: Layoffs are the last resort to reduce staffing levels. Departments may identify the positions subject to layoff by job classification, geographic location, and/or a particular project.
If you receive a layoff notice, it will outline your options to transfer or demote in lieu of layoff (i.e., “bump” an employee with less seniority), accept the layoff, or resign. (To have bumping rights, you must have seniority over someone else whose position is not being cut.) See “Reemployment” for information on returning to your job.
