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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

#121

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…

> I think it was a good call for the CEO to do it instead of outsourcing to HR or a COO.

There was actually a movie about these outsourced "downziser" organizations/consultants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_in_the_Air_(2009_film)

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

#123

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…

Taking the slings and arrows for it by entirely protecting himself with a one way call?

Nice meme

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

#124

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…

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

#125
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming it's true... 900 employees: 1: stealing wages 2: being able to do so 3: doing that rather than their jobs Is a systemic issue. It had to start long before almost a thousand people decided to commit a crime. Assuming it's true. I tend to not trust framing that comes from the top end of a power imbalance. edit: This isn't Twitter. Don't stop at 1 and decide you read enough to go off on someone. Read the entire…

> 1: stealing wages why is Better.com using that language? all that workers can do is sell their labor time, while the property-owners they work for do not (since they earn rents from ownership). in this case, the workers create and develop some intellectual property (software), yet do not own the fruits of their own labor and are instead paid a wage. in other words: workers work on things that are not democratically…

Read the rest of the comment. I am clearly not in favor of that framing. I was going along with it for a moment to demonstrate why it was a bogus framing.

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

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to micro-diagnose his intro, but I think about half of his intro was needed. I don’t need to hear about how this is the second time or how hard it was last time, but I do think a few sentences of context serves as a “hey, pay attention!” intro to the news. It needs to never be about the manager (CEO in this case) doing the termination, but a few sentences of intro is standard and appropriate I think.

I almost deleted my comment after I wrote it, because, like, I get that he's probably also nervous and it's not an easy thing to do. You're probably right that some kind of "pay attention!" intro is necessary, but, yes, I'd definitely advise skipping over all the stuff about how hard this is for him .

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

#127
post #63

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…

Do it the way AirBnB (or most other companies) did it: announce that large scale layoffs will be happening due to X and Y reasons, and that the individuals losing their jobs will be contacted over the next week. Then someone phones/zooms them individually and answers questions and lets them know right away what'll happen. This isn't about Covid, this is about the CEO making this easier on himself. I'm guessing he exp…

That would be the most unpleasant week of my career, regardless of the outcome. I'd get nothing done and probably be interviewing by the end of it.

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

#129
Could be worse. There were mass layoffs in one part of my company many years ago. About half the people were fired and the other half retained. HR mixed up the packets for each group. The not fired got the packets destined for the people being fired and vice versa. It was a disaster.

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

#130
post #101
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Zoom call part isn't really the issue, although individual Zoom meetings would have been better. > In another email obtained by Forbes last year, Garg wrote: > > ‘You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS and…DUMB DOLPHINS get caught in nets and eaten by sharks. SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.”

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.

Hell, 10:1 would be okay and 1/10th of the price.
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