For Matt. Rollout Wednesday September 2nd.
Conversations 8 to 10, all staff at 10, breakouts after. What Matt says, who stands with him, and what has to be done between now and then.
Wednesday September 2nd, the ten conversations happen between 8 and 10, and everyone else is in a room at 10. Matt turned down the other version, where staff hear the plan first and people go that afternoon. He was right to. That one is a scare tactic and it costs more trust than the hour it buys.
| The point | By 10 o'clock everybody already knows. The meeting is there to say what happens next and who is leading it |
| Who speaks | Matt, then Ariel and Erin, and not Ruth. Ask them tomorrow whether they want to |
| Timing | Ten minute slots, 8:00 to 9:40. Matt does all ten, Ruth witnesses all ten. Each person is out of the building within about fifteen minutes |
| Then later | Ruth books each of them a benefits and final pay call for Wednesday afternoon or Thursday, by phone or off site. Not in the lobby |
| Then | Breakouts by team. The first ten minutes will be questions. Leaders need arming for that |
| Biggest gap | Client coverage. Six of the ten carry caseloads and Wednesday morning has appointments in it. Nobody has named who takes them |
| Second gap | Nobody has drafted what the ten are told. The plan so far is all about the people who stay |
| Do not merge | The desk-pounding incident is a separate matter with its own timeline. Section 6 |
Dustin knows the offboarding mechanics. Give him the list Tuesday night so nothing has to be improvised at 8am.
Whoever is doing the conversations is in place before the first car park arrival.
Ten minute slots: about five minutes of talking and five to reset the room and bring the next person in. That lands at 9:40 with twenty minutes of slack, so two conversations can run long without pushing into the meeting.
Accompanied to collect personal things, then out. Not a march, but not lingering either. Ten people in the building while the rest arrive and clients check in is the version that turns a hard morning into a scene.
Final pay, the leave payout, benefits, COBRA, references. It takes as long as each person needs, and it does not happen in the lobby.
Six of the ten carry caseloads. Their appointments have to transfer that morning, so the clock on coverage starts the moment they are told. The four who do not carry clients can go later in the window.
The last conversation cannot still be running when the room fills at 10.
Matt, twelve to fifteen minutes. Then Ariel and Erin. Then questions in the room.
Clinical in one room, the rest split by function. Managers lead. Matt rotates through all of them.
A short written notice: services continue, here is who to contact.
The notification is short by design. It holds five things: your position is being eliminated, effective today; this is the position and not your performance; here is your packet with final pay, the leave payout, benefits and references; Ruth is here all morning for the detail; here is what happens in the next hour. That is about ninety seconds of content. Stretching it to fifteen invites negotiation, and there is nothing to negotiate.
The time people genuinely need is the second conversation, and it belongs to Ruth. It does not happen that morning. Benefits, COBRA, the payout, what a reference will say. Ruth books each of them a call for Wednesday afternoon or Thursday, by phone or somewhere off site.
ð They leave the building within about fifteen minutes. Accompanied to collect their things, then out. Ten people still on site while the other forty-five arrive and clients check in is what turns a hard morning into a scene, and it is unfair to the people leaving as much as to anyone else. The packet answers the immediate questions in writing so nobody has to stand in a corridor asking them.
decidedSplitting the ten between Matt and Ruth would finish by 8:50 and it is the wrong trade. Matt said he would fall on the sword for this. If Ruth delivers five of them, five people are let go by HR while five are let go by the chief executive, and in a fifty-five person building that difference gets noticed and talked about. Matt takes all ten. It costs fifty minutes.
ð Two people in every room, always. One delivers, one witnesses. Never do one of these alone, which is the other reason the split does not work: it would put Matt and Ruth in separate rooms with no witness in either.
ð The two-hour gap is the part to plan hardest. People arrive for an eight o'clock start while colleagues are being walked out, so by ten Matt is talking to a room that already knows. His opening has to say that out loud rather than break news. Something as plain as "you already know what happened this morning, so let me tell you why, and what happens now."
Six of the ten carry caseloads. An unfinished progress note is an unbillable session. If someone is terminated on Wednesday with open documentation from Monday and Tuesday, that work cannot be billed and cannot easily be reconstructed by anyone else.
Arukah's whole December case rests on billing capture. Losing a fortnight of notes across six clinicians on the day would be a self-inflicted hit to the exact number the plan depends on.
By Tuesday: every departing clinician's open notes are current, or the supervisor knows which sessions are outstanding and who reconstructs them. Owner: Ariel.
Clinical staff have client files, notes and case materials mixed in with their own things. Nothing with a client name on it leaves the building, on paper or on a personal device. Whoever accompanies each person needs to know that before they walk into the room, not work it out in the moment.
âïļ This is a records question, not an etiquette one. Worth a line from counsel on the same call.
Not the night before, because being locked out is the worst possible way to find out. Not at lunchtime, because that leaves an open window. At the moment each conversation begins.
That means Dustin needs the running order, not just the list, and somebody has to tell him when each one starts. He already knows the mechanics: on the 27th he talked Matt through email cutoff and machine handling unprompted.
This is his own outline from the call, in order. Twelve to fifteen minutes, no longer.
Name it. "You already know what happened this morning. I am going to be straight with you about why, and then we are going to talk about what happens next."
The numbers, shallow. Four grants ended and we were spending more than we brought in. Two figures on a screen, no spreadsheet. "I want to be transparent with everybody. I want to show you some numbers. I don't want to go deep."
Why this place matters. "The value of what you do, and the value of Arukah in these five counties, is not in question. That is exactly why we have to fix the business underneath it."
What changes. We tighten spending. We change processes. We do business differently. We're one agency. We're not six, seven silos. There are changes coming to time off and to hours, and I will be straight with you about those too.
The 90-day plan exists. Not a hope, a plan, with psychiatry and clinical integration in it. Here is the shape of it.
Confidence, earned not claimed. "I am confident that we can do this. I would not be here, and all of you would not be here, if you weren't here to fight."
Then hand over. To Ariel and Erin.
Matt wants the bandage off in one pull: the cuts, the new way of working, and the plan, all on the same morning. That is the right call and this page is built for it. The question is only where each piece goes.
A room that has just watched ten colleagues leave will not absorb a briefing on revenue capture and service integration. People are doing arithmetic about themselves. So the plenary carries the fact that a plan exists and the breakouts carry what is in it. Everything still lands Wednesday. Nothing gets deferred a week.
Plenary: what happened, why, that this is the correction rather than the first of several, that there is a ninety day plan and a December 1st decision, and who is leading each part. Breakouts: the plan itself, in the room where people can ask about their own job.
Matt already had this shape on the call. He said the breakouts are where "we're going to show how we're going to be able to capture more Revenue and we're going to have better processes in place." This just holds the line on it, so the plenary does not quietly become the briefing.
Matt cannot promise anyone is safe and should not try. But "this is the correction" and "this is the first of several" are heard completely differently, and which one people hear on Wednesday decides how many of them are on Indeed on Thursday.
Say it as a fact about the plan rather than a promise about people: "This is not a first round. This is the correction, and it is built to get us to a decision on December 1st with options still open."
ðŠĪ The call transcript says "Aaron and Ariel". It means Erin. Granola hears Erin as Aaron, and the only Aaron at Arukah is Aaron Rios, the WORTH Group Facilitator, who is on the cut list. He is being let go that morning. Do not read the transcript literally here.
Matt's own reason, and it is the right one: "Everybody's like, well, I don't trust Matt. I do trust Ariel." He has been there six weeks. The people who have been there for years are the ones staff believe.
| Who | Position |
|---|---|
| Ariel | Yes. She gave Matt the clearest pulse in the room: "I am there. I'm ready for this. We've been talking about this for a year and no one's done anything." That is the sentence the staff need to hear from her, not from him |
| Erin | Yes. Second voice. She runs revenue cycle, so the billing and collections half of what changes is hers to say |
| Grace | Possible. Ask |
| Ethan | Ask. If he has nothing he wants to say, do not manufacture a part for him |
| Ruth | Not speaking, and present the whole time. HR standing silent beside the message is right; HR delivering it is not |
Suggested wording, not a quote.
"I am going to fall on the sword for this whole thing, but I am doing it for you, because this is your company and your culture. What I need is for it not to be only me standing up there. Would you be willing to say something? I will not script you, and I will not hold it against anyone who says no."
ð Ask, do not assign. Somebody who was told to speak reads as told to speak, and a room of fifty people can hear the difference. Matt has this right already: "I want them to be the authors of this too. I want them to own it."
Staging: have them standing off to one side rather than lined up behind him, two speakers, sixty to ninety seconds each, in their own words.
Clinical in one room, the rest split by function. Managers and team leaders run them. Matt rotates through every group.
ð Matt already has the useful read on this: the first ten to fifteen minutes will not be productive. People want answers before they want a plan. Tell the leaders that ahead of time, so nobody tries to force a deck through it and nobody reads the mood as failure.
Each one needs a single page with four things:
| When | What | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Thu Aug 27th | Send the all-staff calendar invite for 10:00 Wednesday. Title it plainly. No agenda in the body, which only starts rumours a week early | Matt |
| Thu Aug 27th | Ask Ariel, Erin, Grace and Ethan who is willing to speak. Ask, do not assign | Matt |
| Fri Aug 28th | Nine program meetings, so the list is not finalised blind | Matt |
| Fri Aug 28th | Second call with Eric Christian on the layoff mechanics | Matt |
| Fri Aug 28th | ðī Client coverage map. Every departing clinician's Wednesday appointments, and the named person taking each one | Ariel |
| Tue Sep 1st | ðī Open clinical notes closed out for all six who carry caseloads, or a list of what is outstanding and who reconstructs it. An unfinished note is an unbillable session | Ariel |
| Tue Sep 1st | Running order to Dustin, so access is cut as each conversation starts rather than the night before | Matt, Dustin |
| Tue Sep 1st | Brief whoever accompanies people to collect their things: nothing with a client name on it leaves | Ruth |
| Fri Aug 28th | ðī Draft what the ten are told. One script, same for everyone | Matt, Ruth |
| Sat Aug 29th | Board email and the packet. See the warning below about what slipping costs | Matt |
| Mon Aug 31st | Leadership walk-through of the whole Wednesday, start to finish. This is the rehearsal, and it is where they poke holes | All |
| Mon Aug 31st | One-page brief to every manager running a breakout | Matt |
| Tue Sep 1st | Rooms, printed packets, the IT offboarding list to Dustin | Ruth, Dustin |
| Tue Sep 1st | Partner and referrer notice drafted and ready to send Wednesday afternoon | Ethan |
| Wed Sep 2nd | 8:00 to 10:00 conversations. 10:00 all staff. Breakouts. Partners | All |
The leave policy is the one item that needs a board vote. A packet going out Saturday leaves Sunday, Monday and Tuesday for a board to act between meetings, which normally needs unanimous written consent or a special meeting with whatever notice the bylaws require.
That is fine, and it only becomes a problem if it is discovered on Tuesday. If the vote will not land, the Wednesday script says the change is coming and takes effect on board approval. Decide which version Matt is saying before he stands up, not during.
An employee pounded a desk and swore at a manager in front of others. Three people involved. Matt's read is that the manager may not have handled it well either, and that it "may give us a couple people."
ðī Handle it as its own matter, on its own timeline, with its own paperwork. A termination for conduct that lands on the same morning as a reduction in force, off a ten-minute investigation, stops looking like two decisions and starts looking like one convenient one. That is the version that gets tested later.
What that means in practice: investigate properly rather than in ten minutes, document it separately, and if discipline follows, it should not land on Wednesday. Doing it on another day keeps it a separate matter, which is what it actually is.
âïļ It is also a real management problem regardless of the layoff. A counselor swearing at a manager in front of staff, and a manager who may have escalated it, is worth an hour of somebody's attention this week on its own merits.
Six of the ten carry caseloads, and Wednesday has appointments in it from eight o'clock. Arukah is a clinic with waiting rooms. A client arriving at nine for a session with someone who left at half past eight is the likeliest thing to go wrong, and it is the version that reaches the community fastest.
Needed by Friday: every departing clinician's Wednesday and Thursday schedule, the named person covering each appointment, and a decision on who tells the client and when. This has been an open item since August 21st and it is now four working days out.
Everything built so far is about the people who stay. Nobody has written the conversation itself. One script, the same for everyone, covering: what is happening, that it is a position being eliminated and not a performance judgment, final pay and the leave payout, health cover, references, and what happens in the next hour.
ð The notification is five minutes. The conversation that matters is the one Ruth holds afterward, and it takes as long as each person wants. What people remember for years is whether they were treated like a person on the way out, and in a town this size that is also what they tell everyone else.