severance can – A former Capital One and Wayfair HR leader urges laid-off workers to treat severance like a package with parts they can ask to improve—especially in higher-level departures—while keeping talks professional and focused on a few high-impact terms.
On the day she found out she was getting laid off from her first job after college, Sara Perelli-Minetti says she didn’t have the luxury of waiting for other people to tell her what to do. She negotiated her severance before most of her friends even knew what severance was.
Now Perelli-Minetti runs Hellos & Goodbyes, an executive compensation coaching company. Her career path—from people analytics at Capital One to HR leadership at Wayfair—has shaped how she views what severance actually is: not a single number. but a bundle of terms made through internal decisions. with different degrees of flexibility depending on how and why the separation happens.
“There are five things everyone should know about severance,” she says, laying out how the package is typically built and where employees may have leverage.
A severance package is usually more than pay
Perelli-Minetti describes the core of severance as weeks of base salary alongside incentive-based compensation, such as a bonus or commission.
When employers are dealing with significant equity compensation, she says it’s sometimes paired with “another quarter’s vest,” effectively adding continued movement toward equity benefits.
Beyond money, she says packages commonly include healthcare coverage and some form of career transition service. Non-disclosure agreements may have been signed. Many deals also include a non-disparagement clause, which says employees cannot disparage their former company “in any way.”
Executives, she adds, often face restrictive covenants like non-compete and non-solicitation agreements.
One practical detail matters, she says: the package should include the employee’s last day on payroll. If someone is still on payroll, she notes, they remain eligible for employee-sponsored healthcare and tax-advantaged savings like a 401(k).
And she doesn’t sugarcoat it: “Everything is negotiable — but not for everyone.”
Large layoffs make negotiation harder; exceptions can add risk
Perelli-Minetti says severance negotiations are especially difficult in large-scale reductions in force. where thousands of people are laid off at the same time. In those situations, she explains, companies tend to keep terms standardized—and “exceptions actually create risk for the company.”.
In smaller organizations, smaller RIFs, or individual terminations, she says nearly the entire package is negotiable. The question becomes who the negotiation is realistically for.
She has seen the most success when clients are in multiple protected classes at the VP-plus or director-plus level. Employers, based on her experience, also seem more sensitive to age-related claims.
When it works, the tone is the strategy
For Perelli-Minetti, negotiation success isn’t just about which terms employees ask for—it’s about how they ask.
She says successful severance negotiations are “amicable. collaborative. and professional. ” and she strongly advises against threatening legal action unless the person truly plans to follow through. In her view. showing up looking for “validation of a bad experience” makes it harder to get a better deal. particularly if the conversation escalates.
To negotiate effectively, she urges employees to understand the company’s framework and precedent for severance packages: whether the employer caps severance, whether exceptions have been made, and whether there’s a baseline pay amount that every employee receives.
That doesn’t mean airing grievances in an uncontrolled way. She describes it as a balance—laying out context professionally while selectively highlighting risks. For example. she says it’s possible to mention the protected classes someone is in. or circumstances leading up to the layoff that were “weren’t positive. ” including going on medical or maternity leave that year. “It’s not illegal,” she says, “but it’s not great for the company. The optics matter.”.
She also says employees should examine their own position before negotiations begin: whether they’ve been professional and had good performance. and whether they are someone the company “trusted.” If someone is grounded. professional. and reasonable. she says the company is more likely to work toward a mutually acceptable agreement.
Focus on a few parts, not the whole package
Perelli-Minetti recommends that people concentrate on the three to four parts of the severance package that matter most to them and give a clear rationale.
For example, she says someone with a chronic health condition may prioritize continuity of care with providers. She has seen employers extend healthcare coverage beyond the weeks of severance because. in her words. the optics are good—and it’s often cheaper per dollar than extending severance itself.
At the VP-plus level, she says she has seen success negotiating the waiver of generic outplacement services and requesting a lump sum toward the career transition service of the individual’s choice. In her experience, that requested amount often falls between $5,000 and $15,000.
At the most senior level, she adds, clients often try to negotiate non-competes to make them less restrictive.
She also calls out one of the simplest ways to add value: asking for additional time on payroll.
For non-disparagement clauses, she recommends pushing for them to be mutual. She says it’s unlikely a company will change non-disparagement terms as part of a RIF, but in an individual termination the company may be more open.
Why HR may lean in
Perelli-Minetti frames negotiation as something employers also manage emotionally.
“Employers want to feel like they’re doing the right thing,” she says. She argues they’re not trying to punish employees, and she believes HR leaders “have hearts” and want to feel good about the solution.
One leverage point many people miss
She also urges workers to think beyond severance during the departure moment. People, she says, often don’t realize they can negotiate severance as part of a job offer.
She says this tends to be easiest when people are excited about bringing the employee on board—typically at the VP-plus level—but for C-suite contracts, she says it is “quite standard.”
Even if someone isn’t in that range, she recommends that director-plus employees ask what the standard severance package would be if their role were eliminated. Her bottom line is direct: “There truly is no industry standard for severance,” so understanding what you’re walking into can matter.
The human reality underneath the math is simple: one decision about a package can determine whether the next months feel merely uncertain—or survivable enough to plan.
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