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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

#401

Post by joshstrange »

irrational wrote: post #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.

That's rough. My last company put a meeting on everyone's schedule for 5 minutes in the future. As we walked to where the meeting was we realized our invites had different rooms. I'm not sure if anyone accidentally followed the crowd without noting they were assigned to a different room but I'm sure that would have been awkward. I was one of the people laid off (I just hit my 3 months there) but interestingly enough was hired back the following Monday (layoffs on Friday) because another engineer who wasn't laid off was actually just about to put in his 2 weeks notice and he recommend me to fill his position. Needless to say, I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof anytime I get a last minute meeting invite.

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

#402

Post by mrweasel »

bko wrote: post #363
mrweasel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally yes, but 900 people? Before you’ve reached the end of that list you’ll have created a lot of fear among the remaining people. I worked for a company that did individual firing with a manager and HR, it was no where near 900 people, and it still took the better part of a day. It was absolutely terrible for everyone, not just those who where to be fired.

Goldman Sachs regularly lays off 5% of their 40k workforce every year. It all happens in a short period of time. They somehow manage to do it.

That's still almost half the number Better.com fired (9%), and Goldman Sachs has a procedure, if they do this every year.

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

#403

Post by missedthecue »

VRay wrote: post #246
fourseventy wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

assuming they did a 20 minute meeting for each employee thats 233 hours or 29 business days to fire all 700 of them...

That's the cost of doing business, you keep the profits and in exchange you don't treat your employees like fucking garbage. He didn't even need to lay them off, according to the article. He just wanted "a fortress balance sheet going into the holidays"

From the employees' perspective, who wants to sit around in angst for a month while your friends and colleagues are dropping like flies, wondering if you're next?

One and done is the way to do it in my opinion. Dragging out bad news seldom works out well.

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

#404

Post by GBond »

seanlinehan wrote: post #35

To anybody affected by this layoff, my company Placement.com created a Better.com Alumni Job Board [0] to help smooth the transition. We've seen over and over how much easier it is to get a job at a company where: 1. You have a connection (or can build one easily) 2. The company recognizes the companies you previously worked for Targeting companies that ex-colleagues work at is a powerful strategy! So we made this bo…

If you feel bad, make it free

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

#405

Post by missedthecue »

beaconstudios wrote: post #111
beckman466 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

related fun fact: wage theft by employers is the largest category of theft in the US by a large measure [1]. [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo...

Time theft by employees well over an order of magnitude greater than this.

https://www.epaysystems.com/time-theft-facts-and-stats/

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

#406

Post by missedthecue »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #255
beckman466 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

"Wage theft" in these terms is a thing only in the US. In legal terms, and in most of the developed world, "wage theft" is the unlawful denial of wages from employers to employees.

It's usually called time theft when employees are on the clock but doing things they shouldn't be doing.

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

#407

Post by beaconstudios »

missedthecue wrote: post #405
beaconstudios wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

related fun fact: wage theft by employers is the largest category of theft in the US by a large measure [1]. [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo...

Time theft by employees well over an order of magnitude greater than this. https://www.epaysystems.com/time-theft-facts-and-stats/

Much of "time theft" is covered by people struggling to focus continuously for 8 hours at a time 5 days a week. That's not theft, that's unrealistic expectations.

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

#408

Post by [deleted] »

seabird wrote: post #234
cortesoft wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies do massive layoffs all the time without large meetings to tell everyone at the meeting they are fired. It isn't that hard.

It can be done and it isn't hard for the company . I'm going to float a guess that you haven't experienced a mass layoff where they pop your coworkers one by one over the course of the workday. It's very painful and takes a very long time. Anybody who has been around for one would almost certainly take the mass layoff over 8+ hours of constant worry just to lose your job at the end anyway.

[deleted]

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

#409

Post by cortesoft »

seabird wrote: post #234
cortesoft wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies do massive layoffs all the time without large meetings to tell everyone at the meeting they are fired. It isn't that hard.

It can be done and it isn't hard for the company . I'm going to float a guess that you haven't experienced a mass layoff where they pop your coworkers one by one over the course of the workday. It's very painful and takes a very long time. Anybody who has been around for one would almost certainly take the mass layoff over 8+ hours of constant worry just to lose your job at the end anyway.

I have been around for a number of mass layoffs, and you are right it sucked. It will always suck, there is no way around it.

It doesn’t have to take all day. Managers meet with the people being laid off in the morning. If it is too large to do 1on1, you can do small meetings with a few people and their manager.

Point is that it should come from your direct manager (or the closest direct manager in the chain if managers are also being laid off).

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