This exposes another weakness of the deontological approach: it provides no guidance for determining which of two contradictory rules must be respected. If the supervisor respects the company rule prohibiting disclosing the information to the employee, he must violate the general moral rule prohibiting lying. Conversely, if the supervisor respects the general moral rule about lying, he must violate the company policy about non-disclosure. In this particular scenario, the supervisor would have little help from deontological principles to decide which rule to follow and which rule to violate. Therefore, his only option might be to respond that he is simply not at liberty to respond to the question, although most of the time, that response would already suggest to the employee that the supervisor is aware that layoffs in the department are anticipated.

Other...

For example, virtue and utilitarian ethics would allow the supervisor to consider whether disclosing the information could enable the employee to secure alternate employment more quickly than where the supervisor refuses to disclose the information.
Since the deontological approach only ensures a moral outcome to the extent the rules at issue are capable of producing a moral result, it is not a particularly useful ethical system in many cases and would not be particularly helpful in this scenario.