Employers Want to Fire Workers Without Getting Shamed on TikTok

Videos of disastrous layoffs accumulating on TikTok are prompting companies to seek help in delivering the bad news.

More people are sharing intimate details and recordings from workplace conversations that used to transpire behind closed doors. TikToks about getting laid off are now routinely dissected in public — from CEOs’ mea culpa memos to awkwardly timed announcements and the precise intonation used by human resources managers.

Fear of social-media backlash has executives, especially from smaller tech firms that don’t have big HR operations, looking for advice on how to lay people off without it blowing up in their faces. Onwards HR, a startup specializes ...