In spite of reports of a strong economy, we are still seeing people being laid off in pockets in surprising numbers around the world. Tesla announced a 9% reduction i

In spite of reports of a strong economy, we are still seeing people being laid off in pockets in surprising numbers around the world. Tesla announced a 9% reduction in their workforce. Deutsche Bank said it will reduce by 7%.

Layoffs are almost always in response to some missed financial objective. They are a knee-jerk reaction to situations that have gone ignored for far too long.

If you drill down to the root cause of just about every one of these situations, you will find managers who were unwilling to do the right thing by the company and their employees to coach, counsel and fire people who are unable to perform in their role.

That may sound harsh, but if you hear me out, you'll see it's the most compassionate and caring way to take action that leaves everyone better off long before layoffs are necessary.

First, let's look at the mechanics of a layoff. The process for handling these reductions in force starts with stack ranking everyone in the affected part of the organization. People at the bottom are generally the ones let go. So, if you've been laid off, you might console yourself by saying, "hey it was just an economic decision, it wasn't based on my performance". That's a nice thought, but unless your employer went out of business, it's not true. Nobody at the top of the game ever gets laid off unless the business is boarding up the windows.

I know I'm bursting some bubbles with that, but I've been there too so I know how you feel.

The downside of using layoffs to get rid of low performers is that people who could really benefit from receiving coaching and formal performance improvement continue along vulnerable to their blind spots. The only upside is for the manager. The manager gets a simple way to rid the organization of low performers without ever having a difficult conversation.

It is a management failure when anyone is laid off and goes away thinking they were doing a good job.

Strong managers are coaches. They are consistently giving feedback based on expectations that he or she has set for the team. When this is happening, no one should ever be surprised when they are let go, be it through layoff or termination for cause.

As a manager you should be giving feedback - recognition and praise for work well-done, or corrective feedback for performance failures - on at least a weekly basis. People who receive praise and recognition for doing good work are immediately more productive and that motivation lasts for several days. Gallup has studied this and discovered that praise has a shelf life and it's about 5 to 7 days.

That's why the weekly feedback is critical. People who receive correction, for performance failures correct those problems before bad habits are formed. If they don't make the necessary corrections during the next week, the manager can confidently have a discussion and determine the next course of action. If coaching conversations are expected and held regularly, it's easy to have even the hardest of conversations.

For situations where improvements are never made, these coaching conversations will uncover other problems, like lack of understanding about the expectations, the need for further training and mentoring, or in the hardest of cases, termination.

In my experience as a manager for more than 20 years, when it comes time to fire someone they know it's coming and after the initial realization that they are no longer employed, they are relieved. They are relieved because they needed someone else to do for them what they wouldn't do for themselves - end a job that was a bad fit.

Most people, when you've gone down the performance improvement path and improvement isn't being made, will quit before you ever have to fire them.

When you do this on an ongoing basis, people improve or leave or are fired from the organization. When you do this, there is no room for a layoff. Because your team is at peak performance and near peak efficiency.

When you don't do this, you have an underperforming team. They underperform in terms of productivity, profitability, customer satisfaction, quality and safety. And when that is the case, businesses struggle and layoffs are necessary.

Companies with great coaches can't afford to lay anybody off. People are performing at their peak and therefore you don't hire anyone until you really need them and therefore, you can't afford to lose anyone in a layoff either. Your team will be at historic peaks in productivity, profit, client satisfaction, employee retention, safety and overall quality.

So, back to layoffs.

If you're a manager, and you receive the directive that a layoff is iminent, will your people be blindsided? Or will they, when they are the ones selected, understand why they were the ones that lost their jobs?

Ryan Houmand is founder of Ryan Houmand Coaching. He helps individuals and organizations love Monday just like Friday, but for a different reason. He is aspeaker. He is the author of "A Passion for Monday" and has appeared on NBC, CBS and FOX to discuss "The 3 Mistakes that Make People Hate Monday". Find out more at RyanHoumand.com or contact him directly at Ryan@Qwerke.com