A layoff — a reduction in force, or RIF — goes wrong in two places, and they are both avoidable. The selection: criteria invented after the names are already on the whiteboard, applied a little differently to each person, never written down. And the file: six months later nobody can show what the criteria were, who was compared against whom, or why this person and not that one.
This eleven-tab workbook fixes the order. You set the criteria and their weights first. You define the comparator pools — the groups of genuinely interchangeable roles — and how many roles each pool has to lose. Then you rate everyone in a pool 1 to 5 from records, and the workbook computes a weighted retention score, ranks each person inside their own pool, and marks the ranked selections against that pool’s target. Change a rating, a weight, or a target and every label recomputes.
It’s a layoff selection template for Excel and Google Sheets, built for owners, HR leads and operations managers running a reduction for the first time. Every name, pay figure, rating and site you see in the screenshots and in the pre-loaded example is fictional — invented for the walkthrough, and meant to be overwritten with your own.
Then it builds the file around that decision.
How do you decide who gets laid off? Weighted RIF selection scoring
You decide by rating everyone in a comparator pool against the same weighted criteria, then ranking within that pool against the reduction target you set before any names were scored.
The retention score is the sum of (rating × weight) divided by the total weight, which lands it back on the same 1.00–5.00 scale — so the score still computes correctly even if your weights don’t total exactly 100%. The rank runs within the comparator pool, never across the company, because your best fulfillment associate and your best support specialist are doing different jobs and have to be read against their own group.
Each pool carries the reduction target you set before anyone was scored. The workbook marks the lowest-ranked rows up to that target as Select for reduction, marks the next one Next in line so you can see how close the cut was, and leaves everyone else Retain. Ties at the cut line are flagged, not quietly broken — and a selected row whose evidence isn’t marked on file is flagged red, because a score with no source behind it is an opinion with a number on it.
What a layoff template does that a blank spreadsheet can’t
- An Impact Review. Who the selection lands on by department, by site, and by length of service, against your overall rate. Groups under five people are marked unreadable rather than flagged, because 50% of two people is not a pattern. It is your own composition check — explicitly not an adverse-impact analysis and not a legal conclusion.
- A Cost & Savings model. Severance on the formula you set (weeks per year of service, with a floor and a cap), pay in lieu of notice, unused time off, benefits continuation and one-time costs — against the annual payroll and employer burden removed. It gives you the year-one net and the payback in months, and it names what it does not price.
- A Decision Log. Each selected person, their score and their rank fill in from the ranking, so you write only what matters: the criteria that drove it, the evidence you relied on, the alternatives you considered for that person, and who approved it.
- A Notification checklist. Eleven steps per person, each with its own completion read beside the separation date you set. The steps run from recording that date, the meeting and the witness through the written notice, the severance document, final pay, benefits, equipment, access and references, and end with telling the remaining team.
- A 20-document Process File index. The documents a complete reduction file is built from, in the order they should come into existence, what each one proves, who usually owns it, and where yours is filed.
- A Dashboard that won’t say “ready to notify.” Not until every selection fits the rows the file tabs hold, the evidence is on file, the counsel review is marked done on the Process File tab, the documents are closed out, and no group is flagged on the composition review. Five checks in all, each naming exactly what is still outstanding — and when they are clear, the workbook says in as many words that this is a check on your process and your file, not on your legal position.
When to involve an employment lawyer in a layoff
Twice, at two different moments. A few questions have to go to counsel early, because the answers set your calendar — above all whether any advance-notice rule reaches you, plus any union or contract obligation that can override your criteria. Then take the completed file — the criteria memo, the pool definitions, the full scoring and the composition review — to counsel before you notify anyone, so the billable hours go on judgment rather than setup.
The How to Run a RIF tab carries the questions a qualified employment lawyer answers quickly and you cannot answer at all — advance-notice rules, which characteristics are protected where you operate, what a release agreement has to contain, when final pay is due, benefits continuation, anyone on leave or with an open accommodation, union or contract obligations, immigration and work-authorization effects, and record retention. Nine questions in all. It also carries a 12-row table of the factors that can never be a criterion — commonly protected characteristics and activities under U.S. employment law, together with the proxies that quietly smuggle them into a scoring sheet, and a note that many states and cities protect more, so your own list comes from counsel.
That is the point of the whole file: to turn a counsel review from “please look at our layoff” into “here is the dated criteria memo, the pool definitions, the completed scoring for everyone, and the composition review — what have we missed?” That is a short conversation, and a much better one.
Own it, don’t rent it
A blank spreadsheet gives you nothing but the grid. A consulting engagement gives you a process you don’t keep. This is a file you own outright — no seats, no per-employee fee, nothing to renew, and nothing to rebuild if you ever need it again. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets and LibreOffice Calc, and a one-click “Make a copy” link puts the native Google Sheet in your Drive without an import.
Not legal advice — please read
This workbook helps you run a reduction as a consistent, documented process and keeps the file that shows it. It is not legal, HR, tax, or professional advice. It cannot tell you whether a reduction is lawful, whether an advance-notice rule reaches you, what a severance agreement should say, or when final pay is due. Employment rules vary by country, state and locality, and by the size of your business and of the reduction. The Impact Review is your own composition check — not an adverse-impact analysis, no statistical test, and it knows nothing about protected characteristics. Take the completed file to a qualified employment lawyer before you notify anyone. Every person, pay figure, site and rating in the example is fictional.
Not sure yet whether you’re running a formal reduction? The free single-factor RIF selection starter ranks one pool on one factor — enough to sketch a fair comparison. If you’re already choosing names, you need the criteria and the file, and that’s this workbook.
