Two cases

Company A spent a lot of money providing a safety net, but it didn't handle the
process very well.
Company B did not spend a lot money on severance package but it was very
communicative about the lay off process.
Company A sputtered under a litany of lawsuits while Company B prospered after the
layoffs.

Process fairness (company b) - believing that they had been treated justly
Great benefits with minimal costs.

Business case for Fair Process

1. How much input employees believe they have in the decision-making process
2. How employees believe decisions are made and implemented (consistency, non
bias, transparency, etc)
3. How managers behave

Process fairness is different from outcome fairness. If a person is passed over

for a promotion, if the process is fair (aka, the candidate knows everything) then
he will be satisfied. If he thinks the process was not fair (aka, the other guy
was the boss' pet) then he will feel hurt and would want retaliation.

Retaliation - Employees bring wrongful termination suits if they feel they weren't
treated with fairness.
Customers are less willing to bring malpractice suits against doctors if they feel
like everything was disclosed and discussed before hand.
Theft - terminated employees who felt it was unfair stole more stuff.

Turning to money as an incentive to persuade people otherwise is not that

effective. Practicing fairness, however, is quite cheap and provides much more
benefits.
Oversees employees - if they felt that their boss was open and fair, etc, the
other perks do not really matter.
On site job benefits - Employees would much rather be treated with dignity and
respect than job perks.
Use law of diminishing returns to judge how much fringe benefits to deploy. Beyond
a certain level of spending, money doesn't say it all.

Performance booster
Not only does fair process decrease costs, it also increases value.
First, the proposals have to be well-founded and strategic because they have to
stand up to town-hall and direct feedback. Managers often didn't request
additional resources to carry out the change, they often just wanted to have their
efforts and difficulties acknowledged by the higher ups.

Use of Strategic Fitness Process

A group of midlevel managers would interview and gather opinions from employees
and to gain commitments from employees.

Creativity and Innovation

occurs in organizations with high degrees of autonomy, which is an extreme version
of fairness.
If employees don't think their opinions matter or if everything is already
dictated from above, they are less to be creative and innovative.

Progressive Insurance
Gave customers quotes from rival insurance companies. this act of transparency and
their honesty attracted a lot of customers because of their process fairness.
Why isn't everybody doing it?
Winston Churchill - "when you kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite"
There is a perceptual gap between what managers think of themselves and what other
people think of the managers. The measure that measures process fairness is the
only obvious deviation between self reports and third party reports.
Maybe it's because they think they are more fair than they actually come across
as.
Or maybe because it's wishful and self-serving thinking.

The fact that process fairness is relatively inexpensive financially may be why
this numbers-oriented executive undervalued it.
There maybe legal restrictions, but those can be unnecessarily extreme.
Doctors are afraid of apologizing to their patients because it might admit fault,
when in fact doing so would placate many of the malpractice lawsuits.
Also, managers believe that knowledge is power. But the practice of fairness
process actually increases power and authority. Employees are likely to support
rather than comply with decisions if they had a part in the decision process.
Desire to avoid uncomfortable situations - delivering the bad news is always bad.
When one actually needs the interpersonal sensitivity. Instead of that, they might
avoid the situation and the people all together.

Toward Process Fairness

Address Knowledge gaps

Educate managers on what to expect emotionally. When they expect it, it makes it
more palatable.
Invest in training
training and education about the fairness process can decrease bad metrics.
Active guidance, specific instructions. Not only do they have to be fair, they
have to be seen as fair. Also, several installments, with role playing. Refer to
behaviors rather than traits. Generate optimism while injecting realism

Make process fairness a top priority

Starts from the top. When people at the top are seen to be tackling a difficult
problem, others down the line will follow.