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Planning for and Avoiding Layoffs
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Rapid Response Services for Businesses
 In our increasingly competitive economy, businesses are
constantly expanding, contracting, or face barriers keeping
them from sustained growth. Iowa offers many resources that
can assist your company, regardless of business cycles. One
such resource is called Rapid Response. Rapid
Response is designed to take pre-emptive action to manage
layoffs more effectively by quickly providing information to
companies and workers about comprehensive outplacement
services and unemployment insurance. Rapid Response works with businesses to swiftly maximize public and private
resources and minimize the disruptions on companies,
affected workers, as well as, communities affected with job
loss. These services are available without any additional
costs to your business or workers.
Rapid Response: Step by Step
1. IWD’s State Dislocated Worker Unit receives the
WARN notice or is informed of a mass layoff or business closure.
Any information obtained at a local level regarding mass
layoff or business closure shall be forwarded to the State
Dislocated Worker Unit immediately.
2. State staff communicate with the contact person as named
in the WARN notice and explain Iowa Workforce Development
(IWD) policy. If a WARN notice has not been issued but IWD
has been informed of a potential plant closing or layoff
event, State staff will contact
the company in question. In either situation, the
explanation to company officials is an outline of the
procedures as follows in three and four.
3. State staff provide a copy of the WARN notice to regional
IWD Managers and WIA providers. If a WARN is not issued, all
pertinent information is forwarded.
4. State staff contacts the local WIA provider to coordinate
the Rapid Response Meeting. The purpose of this meeting is
to share information regarding services to the workers.
5. IWD’s Rapid Response services include:
- Organizing the Rapid Response Meetings with company
management and labor officials.
- Chairing the Rapid Response Meetings.
- Organizing and facilitating the initial
Employee Information
Meetings.
- Conducting surveys to determine employee needs.
- Providing core services from the local IowaWORKS Center
partners (programs and providers that co-locate, coordinate
and integrate activities and information).
- Providing on-site informational workshops (e.g., Your
Successful Job Search, Job and Career Options, Coping With
Change, Budgeting and Finances or other customized employer
workshops).
- Developing short-term skills-upgrading classes based upon
needs assessments.
- Assisting affected employees with individualized barrier
assessments and skills deficiencies.
- Encouragement of all labor exchange activities.
The services IWD provides are based upon the local labor
market conditions, an evaluation of worker surveys, the
skill levels of the workforce, the general economic
condition of the area and the availability of meaningful
training and the motivation of the workforce. Rapid Response
economic development activities include facilitating
communications between the company undergoing layoffs or
closing with similar employers that are growing and need
skilled workers. These communications can be directed
between Human Resource Directors/Managers of the involved
companies, or it may be necessary to use IWD’s labor
exchange system to ensure appropriate referrals for specific
careers by the use of individualized counseling and
assessment techniques.
Funding may be available from IWD to sponsor local job fairs
to accommodate both hiring businesses and dislocated
workers. IWD works through partnerships with local economic
development groups to identify the skills in demand by area
employers and then partners with local One-Stop partners or
other educational providers such as community colleges to
develop short-term training classes to meet the demands
identified by the local hiring community.
An Important Note: Communicating During the Crisis
During the early phases of the plant closing or layoff
event, Iowa Workforce Development recognizes that
confidentiality is critical. Iowa Workforce Development will
not go public with the news until the company allows. We
recognize that many companies prefer to be the ones to make
the official announcement to the media regarding the closing
or layoff and that you may have a communications plan that
outlines whether you will hold a press conference, issue a
press release, or merely respond to media inquiries.
In all instances, Iowa Workforce Development will work to
coordinate efforts with the company about communicating with
the media. A joint press conference with the company, city
officials, Iowa Workforce Development, and the economic
development organization may be the best option. In some
cases, a company may provide information to the economic
development officials or city government officials and let
them be the point of contact with the media. In order to
maintain good corporate citizenship, many companies will
initiate contact with local government, Iowa Workforce
Development, and economic development officials early in the
plant closing or layoff process. This “allows officials time
to prepare a response that may be more balanced and
favorable than one given where the official learned of the
event from another source.” (The Ammerman Experience.)
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