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Restructuring Announcement

automattic.com

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Re: Restructuring Announcement

#31

Post by oblio »

jelder wrote: post #28
zem wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a lot of companies ask for equipment to be returned due to security concerns, or just on principle

A company which is even moderately "OK" at IT will already have the means to instantly lock and securely wipe devices of any employee at a moments notice. Doing this during a RIF is a hell of a lot better than making the mail room deal with a bunch of filthy laptops.

A large bunch of big companies, including some of the biggest on the planet don't even sell past-end-of-life laptops to their current employees.

Let that sink in. They're not even willing to > old laptops, they would rather scrap them and contribute to pollution and overall waste.

Re: Restructuring Announcement

#33

Post by AlotOfReading »

zem wrote: post #15
bmulholland wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, from the company's perspective this is logistically easiest--the laptop's value is hardly worth the effort.

a lot of companies ask for equipment to be returned due to security concerns, or just on principle

One former employer had this policy, and also refused to provide a way to ship said equipment back. No one was happy with my alternative solution: leaving it at the police station instead.

Re: Restructuring Announcement

#34

Post by slt2021 »

zem wrote: post #7

on the positive side, it's a small thing monetarily, but retention of company laptops is a nice goodwill gesture

companies that collect their laptops from laid off => where do these laptops go? how they recycle them?

Re: Restructuring Announcement

#35

Post by altairprime »

FlamingMoe wrote: post #21

Mentioning "our revenue continues to grow" seems quite out of place in an announcement like this.

If opex is growing at a faster rate than revenue, and it’s not a VC situation, then layoffs are a popular way to curtail opex — typically business leadership cannot effect changes that would eventually impact themselves, so, the board and executive layer prefer to mass-layoff workers and middle management first and then let the remaining leadership fight for their life to present optimized plans. This is of course a terrible approach, because — as Taskmaster quite enjoyably demonstrates — even the smartest people tend to make a lot of asinine judgment calls under duress and deadlines; but when the alternative is to admit weaknesses of leadership, it’s certainly a logical enough course of action.

Re: Restructuring Announcement

#38

Post by fwip »

Arainach wrote: post #25
FlamingMoe wrote: post #21

Mentioning "our revenue continues to grow" seems quite out of place in an announcement like this.

I disagree - it's not properly addressed, but it's nice to see it at least brought up. Layoffs are always awful, but seeing companies talk about "changing economic realities" amongst continuing revenue and profit growth - often all time highs - is a real morale killer for those who are left behind. Microsoft/Amazon/Alphabet/Google are trillion dollar megacorps who are insanely profitable, but they're firing people be…

I might agree with you, if the "why we're making changes" section had listed even one reason to lay people off.

Re: Restructuring Announcement

#39

Post by duskwuff »

blatantly wrote: post #29
anthomtb wrote: post #14

> This restructuring will result in an approximately 16% workforce reduction Probably the most salient detail for non-Automattic employees. Everything else was generic fluff.

Plus severance will be paid but didn't say how much. I was thinking this is a boilerplate firing email though!

I wonder if it's better or worse than the voluntary termination deal they offered to employees last year (first 6 months, then 9 months pay).

Re: Restructuring Announcement

#40

Post by jihadjihad »

anthomtb wrote: post #14

> This restructuring will result in an approximately 16% workforce reduction Probably the most salient detail for non-Automattic employees. Everything else was generic fluff.

> non-Automattic employees

non-Automatticians. Yes, they literally used this term in TFA.

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