Frequently asked questions

What does The Separation Index actually track?

It tracks how companies treat employees on the way out, across four dimensions: how and when people were told, what severance was offered relative to tenure, whether outplacement or extended benefits were provided, and how clearly the company explained the reasons and next steps.

Those dimensions combine into a Separation Score. The site also publishes WARN Act layoff filings, which are public record rather than user submissions.

Who can submit a separation report?

People who personally went through the separation they are describing. Reports about someone else’s layoff are not accepted, and no account is required to file one.

Before submitting, everyone is shown a notice about NDA and non-disparagement considerations that cannot be skipped. Factual accounts of how a separation was handled are generally not covered by an NDA, but the agreement you signed governs, and checking it first is your responsibility.

How do you know a report is real?

Every report carries one of three credibility tiers, and they are weighted differently because they prove different things. An email-verified report counts 5x: the reporter confirmed a one-time link, which proves a real person filed it. A WARN-corroborated report counts 3x: the separation matches a real WARN Act filing for that company on public record, which proves a real event without the reporter identifying themselves at all. An unverified report counts 1x.

The weights differ because email proves a person and WARN proves an event — not because any tier is treated as more truthful than another.

How is a Separation Score calculated?

It is the simple average of three sub-scores, none weighted above the others. Transparency covers how notice was delivered and how much advance warning people got. Fairness covers severance relative to tenure, with a bonus when the company pays for healthcare continuation. Dignity is the 1-to-5 rating from the person who went through it, converted to a 100-point scale.

A report where no severance was offered scores zero on fairness. It is not dropped from the data — the zero is what happened to that person.

Why does a company have no score?

A company needs at least 5 credible reports — email-verified or WARN-corroborated — before any score is published for it. Below that, the profile shows no score at all.

That is a publishing floor, not a verdict. A company with no score has too few reports to publish one, which is not the same as a company that scored badly, and it should never be read as evidence that separations there went well.

Why is one statistic blank on a company page when the others are filled in?

Each individual statistic has its own floor: generally 5 credible reports answering that specific question, and more than that for a few of the most sensitive ones. A percentage drawn from two or three people can effectively expose what one person said.

So a blank means too few people answered that particular question. It does not mean the company performed badly on it.

Where does the WARN Act data come from?

From state labor agency filings, aggregated through public-record sources and attributed to the U.S. Department of Labor. None of it is user-submitted, so it is published without the report floors that apply to submitted data.

A WARN notice records that a layoff was announced. It does not confirm how many people were ultimately let go, and a company with no filings has not necessarily avoided layoffs — WARN only applies above certain size thresholds, and states publish on their own schedules.

Will the company find out it was me?

Submitter identity is never published, and it is never disclosed to the company being reported on — including when that company files a formal dispute. That is unconditional, not a default that can be overridden.

Free-text comments you add to a report are never returned publicly or to the company either, at any sample size, through any page or query path. They are visible only to internal moderation.

How soon after I submit does my report appear?

Reports are held and go live after a randomized delay of 2 to 5 days. The delay exists so that a company cannot line up the moment a report appears with the moment a particular employee would have written it.

Do you store my IP address?

No. It is used transiently at the moment of submission for bot detection and is never written to the database.

One narrow exception applies to separation reports filed without an email address: a one-way salted hash is computed from the first three octets of the address plus a general browser type, to catch duplicate and spam submissions. It cannot be reversed, is not linked to any report’s content, and is purged within 48 hours.

What happens to my email address if I verify a report?

It exists only long enough to send one confirmation link, and is deleted the moment that link is confirmed. Nothing about it is ever published.

Who is allowed to use this site?

People aged 18 or over, located in the United States. Submissions from the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland are restricted by technical measures, and personal data is not knowingly collected from those regions.

Is anything on this site legal advice?

No. The Separation Index is not a law firm, an employment attorney, or a compliance auditor, and nothing here — including the deadline tracker and the severance benchmark — is a substitute for someone qualified to read your own agreement.

If a deadline or a clause in your paperwork matters, confirm it against the document itself and, where the stakes justify it, with an attorney.

Are Separation Scores audited or guaranteed to be accurate?

No. Scores are opinions derived from user-submitted data and algorithmic processing, not statements of objective fact, and they are not audited or certified. Companies should not treat a score as an assessment of their compliance with the WARN Act or any other employment law.

They also describe the reports received, not the workforce. People who had a bad separation have more reason to file a report than people who did not, and no score corrects for that.

Can a company pay to remove a report or raise its score?

No. Companies do not pay to appear, and scores cannot be purchased or improved through any commercial relationship. Offering or accepting compensation to post, change, or remove a report is prohibited for everyone.

How does a company challenge a report it believes is false?

Through the formal dispute process, which is for false statements of verifiable fact rather than negative opinions. Disputes are reviewed in good faith, but content that is protected opinion is not removed, and nothing is removed on the strength of a legal threat or demand letter alone.

Can I file a report about a separation that was handled well?

Yes, and it counts the same way. A positive report raises a company’s Separation Score, and a company that gave real notice, real severance and real support should score higher than one that did not.