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Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

wired.co.uk

141–150 of 157 posts

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#141
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monzo is better in nearly all ways, except slightly worse exchange rates.

All ways? They appear to have _literally_ no way to use any of their services except through a phone "app". No thank you. I don't want a toy bank.

They also have an API, which is what the GP was asking for.

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#142
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US it isn't immediately obvious why it would work, either. As a worker you're much better off being laid off than quitting. "Firing" when it is pretty flagrantly just a mass lay-off shouldn't impact future hiring.

I've seen a lot of hiring managers miss out on great candidates because they assume that someone laid off probably wasn't a top performer ("if they were, the company would have found a way to keep them"). Of course, reality is great people do get laid off when companies draw really broad lines like "everyone hired within the past year" or "the entire division of X". Or sometimes it's just being on the wrong side of y…

SWE @ Lyft: Just one data point, but we went through a layoff last month. Every person I knew closely who was laid off had one or more weak performance reviews in the last year.

Not saying this is always the case, but there is some truth in this concern that might make hiring managers weary.

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I used to work in an office on a typical 5 day week pattern I wouldn't be in the office for breakfast or for dinner If there's a culture of people being on site working longer hours than 9-5 then thats something that will affect your job.

Comparatively, my costs have gone up now that I'm WFH instead of going into the office, because I have to feed myself. I used to arrive at the office for 7am, have a delicious breakfast, a delicious lunch, and take a doggy bag to go for dinner when I left at 4pm. While that can sound terrible on the one hand, on the other hand, the cognitive load of having to make sure I have food for breakfast and/or dinner was wear…

Use this WFH time to learn to cook easy meals.

Check out Anna Jones videos on youtube, like this one

One-Pan Genovese-Style Pasta Recipe | Food Honestly | The Pool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GjEXxkph-c

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#144
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US it isn't immediately obvious why it would work, either. As a worker you're much better off being laid off than quitting. "Firing" when it is pretty flagrantly just a mass lay-off shouldn't impact future hiring.

I've seen a lot of hiring managers miss out on great candidates because they assume that someone laid off probably wasn't a top performer ("if they were, the company would have found a way to keep them"). Of course, reality is great people do get laid off when companies draw really broad lines like "everyone hired within the past year" or "the entire division of X". Or sometimes it's just being on the wrong side of y…

> I've seen a lot of hiring managers miss out on great candidates because they assume that someone laid off probably wasn't a top performer

The distinction I was trying to draw was between firing-for-cause and layoffs; I believe there is more negative association with the former.

> But the other reason companies in the US do this is to shield against liability. If you are terminated, you could later claim wrongful termination. While if you resign, it's much harder.

Pretty hard to claim wrongful termination for a non-cause layoff in the US with typical at-will employment.

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#145
post #68
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I automatically assumed this was a ploy to dodge unemployment/redundancy benefits for employees. This also happens in the US. Much harder to get benefits if you voluntarily quit versus get fired or laid off.

Which is why US companies sometimes pay people to voluntarily retire instead of laying them off.

I was curious what the benefit was to the company if the unemployment insurance is already paid (sunk cost) so I looked it up -

> Employers with more unemployment claims against them will pay a higher rate, and employers with fewer claims will pay less.

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

• 10+ years as an engineer • Minimum GPA 3.5/4 (US), 60% (UK), 8/10 in any other country "So we know you've been out of school for 10 years, but can you send us a copy of your report cards?"

Well I had "we know you've been out of school over 20 years, but we really need to know which exam boards you did your age-16 English literature exam with before we'll interview you for this science degree requiring position ... that we previously employed you for". Thankfully I quite enjoy hunting down lost information but I was not impressed with the HR personnel in that one.

So far what has worked for me in Germany when I got these forms from HR is to put "(by request)" into such fields. Which is, erhm, kind of cheating because, well, they are requesting it right there in the form. But so far, funnily enough, nobody actually bothered. All they cared about was that the form was "completed".

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#147
My boyfriend manages a team at Revolut, and half of them just got laid off despite him fighting to keep them on since shutdown started, when he was prompted to fill out performance reviews. Some of them were hired within the past half year, were on a trial period, and let go the day before the end so they wouldn't receive severance packages. All of them were told it was due to their performance, even though he placed them all at high-performing in his reviews, so that the company can fudge their numbers on covid-related layoffs.

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#148
post #16

They also successfully pressured over 60% of their staff into exchanging salary for twice the value in options. I've worked for dysfunctional companies, but I guess I'm lucky I haven't run into management trying to steal from me.

Get this: before announcing the salary trade-off option, they already gave negative feedback to people in positions they were looking to cut. Then they announced the salary exchange option as an opt-in for the entire company, saying that if people trade at least 30% of salary across the board they wouldn't lay anyone off. You could opt to trade anywhere from 1% to your entire salary for 2x pre-Covid stock valuation. People who were concerned about getting laid off traded more as a result. Some of them were laid off anyways after working for reduced salary.

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#149

Being from the US it wasn't immediately clear to me why they would do this. Found the relevant part of the article: > In Poland, workers say they were told by their line managers and HR that they were underperforming and would be terminated if they didn’t leave voluntarily. But in Portugal mutual agreements stated that dismissals were a result of a reduction of 40 per cent in the group’s activity and a 30 per cent ex…

I don't know about Poland, but in most EU countries you can not just fire someone and stop paying them. There is a termination period the length of which is relative to the time they were employed at the company. After an initial 'trial' period of typically 6 months, during which both parties can end the contract without notice, the notice period can run between 3 to 24 months for the employer, and 1 to 6 months for the employee. While in case of a firing the employee is in theory still working during that period, in practice most knowledge or commercial workers are cut from access to the company's premises and systems the second after the firing meeting. Companies try to avoid having to pay salary during the termination period by pressuring employees to sign a voluntary immediate mutual contract ending agreement.

Re: Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

#150
post #4

Why on earth would anyone voluntarily quit, particularly as in Portugal you will be eligable for unemployment benefits from having been laid-off, vs quitting and not being eligable for the same. Call their bluff. (I live in Portugal, and some foolish bosses tried the same and were rebuffed. FWIW the gov't agreed to pay 60% of the workers benefits during the lockdown in an effort to stem layoffs and furloughs etc.)

Is there a difference in Portugal between being laid off (for economic reasons) and being fired (for underperforming or misconduct)? I got the impression, perhaps mistaken, that the choice for some of the workers referenced in the article was get fired or take this meager deal.

Unless you do something so horrible that it is talked in the news/wide industry, rarely any company will contact your previous employers. They may ask 'so, why did you leave company X?' but in 20 or so years, I never had a company in Portugal ask for an actual reference. (I had in the UK, US and Switzerland though)

While I am not sure, I think legally here is a very grey area as employment information is protected, but I'm not 100% sure.

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