I have a burning question. When you are leading a department of people, and the employees hear there are layoffs coming through the grapevine (not you) -- often, the employees will press for more information about when they are happening, who is affected, what criteria is used to retain or terminate certain employees.

What is the "right way" to talk about this? How do you answer their questions in such a way that everyone doesn't start jumping ship (particularly your better employees who will survive the layoff), while still maintaining your integrity and ability to make the hard decisions about who is let go later on?

For me, it would be wrong to simply assure everyone nothing is going to happen, or to mislead the employees, but you also don't want to inject unecessary, premature fear and instability into your department either.

Comments on this?