How It Works

What we track

The Separation Index tracks four dimensions of employer behavior during workforce separations. Notice Quality measures how and when employees were informed — in-person, via email, on a group Zoom call, or by security escort. Severance Practice captures whether severance was offered, the amount relative to tenure, and whether it required signing an NDA or non-disparagement agreement. Outplacement Support records whether the company provided job placement assistance, extended benefits, or career transition resources. Communication Quality covers whether the company was transparent about the reasons for separation, timing, and next steps. These dimensions combine into a Separation Score.

Who submits reports

Reports are submitted by current and former employees who have been laid off, terminated, or separated from a company. Submitters are not required to create an account, but all submissions are reviewed for authenticity signals before publication. We do not accept reports from individuals who have not directly experienced the separation they are reporting on. Reports submitted while under NDA are the submitter's responsibility — we publish factual accounts of separation processes, not confidential business information.

The NDA notice

Before submitting a separation report, all users are shown a notice about NDA and non-disparagement agreement considerations. This notice cannot be skipped. We do not advise users to violate valid legal agreements. The notice reminds submitters that factual accounts of how a separation was handled — notice method, severance amount, benefits continuation — are generally not covered by NDAs, but that users should consult their agreement and if necessary a legal professional before submitting.

How reports are reviewed

Every submission passes through an automated integrity layer that checks for duplicate submissions, coordinated inauthentic patterns, and submissions that conflict with verified public data. Reports that pass integrity checks are published, typically within 24 to 48 hours of submission. Reports flagged for review are held pending editorial assessment. We do not edit the substance of reports — we publish them as submitted or not at all.

Credibility tiers

Every report carries one of three credibility tiers, and each weighs differently in a company's Separation Score. Email-verified reports (5x weight) come from a reporter who confirmed a one-time link sent to their email address — this proves a real person submitted the report. Nothing about the email is ever published, and the address itself is deleted the moment it's confirmed; it exists only long enough to send that one link.

WARN-corroborated reports (3x weight) are self-reported separations that fall within a window of a matching WARN Act layoff filing for the same company on public record — no email, no identity information, nothing personal required. This proves a real event happened, even when the reporter chooses to stay anonymous.

Unverified reports (1x weight) are reports that carry neither of the above — a self-attested account with no independent confirmation. They still count fully in the score at their tier's weight; they simply carry less weight than a report that's been confirmed to come from a real person or corroborated against a real public event.

The difference in what each tier proves is why the weights differ — email proves a real person; WARN proves a real event — not because any tier is "more true" than another.

How Separation Scores are calculated

Separation Score is built from three sub-scores. Transparency measures how layoff notice was delivered and how much advance notice employees got. Fairness measures severance pay relative to tenure, with a bonus when a company pays for healthcare continuation. Dignity comes from a 1-to-5 star rating given by the person who went through the separation, converted to a 100-point scale.

The overall Separation Score is a simple average of the three sub-scores. No sub-score counts more than another.

A report where no severance was offered scores zero on the fairness component specifically. It is not excluded from the data. It is counted, and the zero reflects what actually happened to that person.

Scores display in one of three bands: above average, average or below average. This is different from the letter-grade system used on the hiring side of our network. Separation experiences do not map cleanly onto a single grade the way hiring process metrics do.

A company needs at least 5 credible reports — email-verified or WARN-corroborated — before a real score displays. Below that threshold, the profile shows no public score.

Unlike the hiring side, Separation Scores are not smoothed toward a platform-wide average. Each company's score reflects only its own reports, even when the sample is small, because pulling a separation score toward other companies' experiences would misrepresent what happened at that specific company. The tradeoff is real: a single bad report at a low-volume company carries more weight here than an equivalent report would on the hiring side, where smoothing softens the effect of a small sample.

Recency weighting (hiring side only)

This applies to Hiring Index scores on our sister site, The Hiring Index, not to Separation Scores. For hiring reports, those submitted within the past 90 days carry full weight in score calculations. Reports between 91 and 365 days old carry 75% weight. Reports older than one year carry 50% weight. This ensures hiring scores reflect current employer behavior and that companies can improve their scores by changing their practices over time. Separation Scores do not use recency weighting. See "How Separation Scores are calculated" above.

WARN Act data

The Separation Index tracks WARN Act layoff filings sourced directly from state labor agencies in California, Texas, and New Jersey. WARN Act data is public record — it is not user-submitted. Each filing shows the company, location, number of workers affected, filing date, layoff date, and whether the required 60-day advance notice was given. WARN Act filings are cross-referenced against active job postings on The Hiring Index to identify companies hiring while simultaneously executing layoffs. All WARN Act data is attributed to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Severance Benchmark

The Severance Benchmark tool aggregates self-reported severance data to give employees and job seekers a sense of what severance packages look like by industry, company size, and tenure. The benchmark is informational only — it is not legal advice. Inputs are anonymous and aggregated. Individual submissions are never displayed publicly. The benchmark helps employees understand whether an offered severance package is consistent with market norms before they sign.

Company profiles

Every company in our database has a profile page showing its current Separation Score, total report count, WARN Act filing history, and a feed of published reports. Company data including headquarters, size, and industry is sourced from Wikidata and public filings. Companies do not pay to appear on the Platform, and scores cannot be purchased or improved through any commercial relationship with The Separation Index.

Good exits get recognized here

The Separation Index is not only a place to document bad exits — it is equally a place to recognize companies that treat departing employees with fairness and dignity. Every confirmed positive report raises a company's Separation Score. Companies that consistently demonstrate transparent communication, fair severance, and respectful processes score higher in the data — and that signal is visible to every employee who looks them up before accepting an offer or navigating a separation. A company that handled a layoff well, with real notice, real severance, and real support, should earn a higher score than one that did not. Submit a report even if your experience was a good one. That data matters.

What we are not

The Separation Index is not a background check service, an employment attorney, or a legal compliance auditor. Scores are opinions derived from user-submitted data. They are not audited, certified, or guaranteed to be accurate. Companies should not rely on scores as a legal assessment of their compliance with the WARN Act or other employment law. Employees should use our data as one resource among many when evaluating employers or assessing their options after a separation.