To ease the pain of being laid off, Bay Street’s biggest brokerages and law firms are adopting a much more friendly dismissal: the long goodbye.

The standard approach to layoffs is rather gruesome. On dismissal days masses of people are called into boardrooms one-by-one, where their bosses sit beside someone from human resources and read from a script. When the speeches end, they are handed an envelope with the company’s opening offer for a severance package.