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Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

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Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#321

Post by throwanem »

bumby wrote: post #187
baby wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Why make the HR team go through 900 individual calls? At the same time this will leak and other employees will learn that they might get fired before they get their own call. Recipe for disaster. Just rip off the band aid.

I think it boils down to leadership is really about managing relationships. This method is just too impersonal for most people, just like breaking off a romantic relationship via text is generally considered weak and frowned upon.

I suspect it is rare, though I suppose not impossible, that anyone needs to break off 900 romantic relationships at once.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#322

Post by Johnny555 »

gambiting wrote: post #154
tyingq wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what seems right to me. It's not the virtual nature, it's the lazy mass group layoff that's objectionable and disrespectful. If you're being laid off, you probably have a lot of questions. A 1:1 meeting would allow for that.

The problem is that 900 people is a lot of people. Imagine all managers scheduling meetings with their reports to tell them, then the managers themselves are probably being let go, in the meantime it would create A LOT of stress not knowing whether you will be called in for a meeting or not, just sitting there seeing people being let go around you 1 by 1. The whole process would take a week just to have a proper meet…

Imagine all managers scheduling meetings with their reports to tell them

I was in a company that had a mass layoff (well, it was getting bought for IP/assets and a few employees). I found out about it from my boss one morning, knew I was getting laid off, then scheduled meetings with my direct reports later that day. It was pretty easy to find time to schedule the meetings since it's not like anyone had any project work to do any more.

By mid day the cat was pretty much out of the bag and everyone knew what was happening, but I and other managers still held the individual meetings.

Managed to hire most of my my former direct reports at my new job.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#323

Post by sweezyjeezy »

agrippanux wrote: post #94
wedowhatwedo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each person being laid off deserves a private meeting with their manager where they are told this. The fact that they hired 900 people they now no longer need is a failing of the CEO by itself. If they work remotely, it can be a zoom meeting. Being told in a meeting with 900 people by someone you don't know is rude and tells me that anyone in leadership in this company are people I would not like to work for. The fac…

If you’re letting go of 900 people, for the average person their manager is also being let go. In a good amount of cases, probably their manager’s manager. I think it was a good call for the CEO to do it instead of outsourcing to HR or a COO. He didn’t try to hide behind another exec. Anyone being let go - especially at the holidays - is going to be pretty pissed about it, and it was the right thing for the CEO to ta…

Counterpoint : this is going viral. The aftermath of that is going to be hard to measure in simple terms.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#324

Post by usrusr »

adwww wrote: post #156
agrippanux wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re letting go of 900 people, for the average person their manager is also being let go. In a good amount of cases, probably their manager’s manager. I think it was a good call for the CEO to do it instead of outsourcing to HR or a COO. He didn’t try to hide behind another exec. Anyone being let go - especially at the holidays - is going to be pretty pissed about it, and it was the right thing for the CEO to ta…

While true, you could do it in waves - task low level managers to inform their directs, then task the senior managers to inform the middle managers, and so on...

That's how you make all your most hireable employees leave ship first. If you want to retain some those are usually the ones you'd want to keep.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#325

Post by nine_k »

agrippanux wrote: post #94
wedowhatwedo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each person being laid off deserves a private meeting with their manager where they are told this. The fact that they hired 900 people they now no longer need is a failing of the CEO by itself. If they work remotely, it can be a zoom meeting. Being told in a meeting with 900 people by someone you don't know is rude and tells me that anyone in leadership in this company are people I would not like to work for. The fac…

If you’re letting go of 900 people, for the average person their manager is also being let go. In a good amount of cases, probably their manager’s manager. I think it was a good call for the CEO to do it instead of outsourcing to HR or a COO. He didn’t try to hide behind another exec. Anyone being let go - especially at the holidays - is going to be pretty pissed about it, and it was the right thing for the CEO to ta…

"As your manager, I'm sad to tell you this, but you are fired. But so am I! It's not you, it's the company."

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#326

Post by renewiltord »

consp wrote: post #278
renewiltord wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. At mass layoffs it's better to do it instantly and en masse because otherwise you cause massive anxiety in everyone, including those who will stay. It's also why multiple rounds of layoffs are a bad idea. Just do everything at once and move on.

Usually people still need to do something in the period before they are actually laid off. With these kind of calls it's scorched earth from there onward and I would question everything everyone does which is counterproductive.

Not for these roles, I don't think. You can just lock their laptop and call it a day, which is what they did. This is fungible labour.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#327

Post by twox2 »

wedowhatwedo wrote: post #65
DangerousPie wrote: post #20

I know this sounds horrible but in the days of covid and working from home, what are companies supposed to do if they have to lay off large amounts of people? Make them all risk their health to come to an in-person event, only to be fired? Drive to every employee's house to fire them in person? It obviously sucks but I don't see how, in 2021, this is any different from the kind of thing that would happen all the time…

Each person being laid off deserves a private meeting with their manager where they are told this. The fact that they hired 900 people they now no longer need is a failing of the CEO by itself. If they work remotely, it can be a zoom meeting. Being told in a meeting with 900 people by someone you don't know is rude and tells me that anyone in leadership in this company are people I would not like to work for. The fac…

I've worked for multiple companies that have had major reductions in force at times. When folks get laid off in a group, it has never been done 1:1. Usually the group getting let go is told all at once separately from the rest of the company. It's done per team or per department, so if you're a software engineer getting cut, you're told at the same time with the other software engineers getting cut, but yes usually the guy that runs the department will be present.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#328

Post by yibg »

DangerousPie wrote: post #20

I know this sounds horrible but in the days of covid and working from home, what are companies supposed to do if they have to lay off large amounts of people? Make them all risk their health to come to an in-person event, only to be fired? Drive to every employee's house to fire them in person? It obviously sucks but I don't see how, in 2021, this is any different from the kind of thing that would happen all the time…

If the comments in this thread is any indication, you can't please everyone. Do it in mass and some people will be pissed off. Do it 1:1 and others will be pissed off.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#329

Post by jerf »

tshaddox wrote: post #277
mrits wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really fire 900 people on individual Zoom calls. After the first 10 minutes everyone will know what their meeting is about and it makes the problem worse. People will be texting their managers begging for information and the manager will have to lie for a day or two until they are authorized to say in the meeting.

> After the first 10 minutes everyone will know what their meeting is about and it makes the problem worse. Huh? It’s not a surprise birthday party. I’m not sure why a key goal would be that each fired person is taken completely by surprise.

The reasons why may not be obvious if you're not a manager or haven't run a large organization before, but the simple truth is, "employees" are not a magically ethical bunch of people simply by virtue of being the underdog and poor and downtrodden and being all fired and stuff. You do not want a significant number of employees running around who are either uncertain they are going to be fired for a significant period of time, and even worse, you don't want a whole bunch of employees running around who have a pretty good idea they're going to be fired in a couple of days, because some fraction of them are going to take advantage of their access to wreck things up for the company. Wrecking things with technical access, wrecking relationships with companies... there's hardly anyone in a position in a company who couldn't do quite a bit of damage if they know they're out the door anyhow. All you have to do is be sure to keep it under the threshold where it's worth getting the legal system involved. (e.g., more "wreck relationships with customers" and keep the damage difficult to quantify and less "set the place on fire during peak business hours").

If a company told me they were going to fire me in two weeks, the worst risk the company would be taking is that I might just decide that they can't fire me in two weeks because I quit. I wouldn't do any other deliberate harm on the way out. Perhaps that's most people.

It certainly isn't all people, though.

Maybe it would be nice if we could all get along well enough to see being fired in some period of time as just business and not worth lashing out. Then again, maybe your sympathies lie with the employees lashing out. But in that case, the company has no choice but to get you out the door with as little warning as possible, to defend both itself as an abstract entity and all the rest of the employees.

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