Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs • Hacker News Board

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#81

Post by rmbyrro » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

phphphphp wrote: post #65

rmbyrro wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For people with anxious tendencies ... the current market is going to be a big source of anxiety I sympathize, but unfortunately I don't see much of what an employer could do to mitigate. This is just the harsh reality that everyone must live through...

tell them immediately?

Not possible to do it personally for dozens or hundreds of people.

If they did it by email, a lot of people would criticize as well. Perhaps, just perhaps, even yourself in the past has criticized or at least found (in your thoughts) an awful way of communicating a lay off?

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#82

Post by lljk_kennedy » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

wbsss4412 wrote: post #73

datalopers wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Klarna’s income is tied to consumer discretionary spending which is falling off a cliff.

Consumer spending is continuing to steadily grow.[0] [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCEC96

That seems to stop showing any data later than Mar 2022?

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#83

Post by rbrtdrmpc- » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

nisse2000 wrote: post #48

atty wrote: post #21

Honestly, what a terrible letter. Did not once say the words layoff or let go. Using phrases like “continue to be part of klarna’s journey”. Good lord, is this a business or a cult? And not a single line about concrete steps they will take to support the layoffs (multi-month severance packages, etc). Hopefully that is what they intend, but as of right now, this is pretty disappointing.

From a Swedish perspective this is probably a "varsel" which is prior notice that they intend to do layoffs. You can't just fire people in Sweden so this is a first step. They have to give notice that they intent to layoff people to the different unions and then start the process. In other countries where they operate it's probably very different? My guess is it will vary a lot how they do this because of first-in-fi…

As one of the candidates to being lay off, not everyone is covered by Swedish law, and in my situation I’ll be completely under the scope of being impacted, which sadness me because the overall experience with the company was the best I ever had. Fucking hell I’m actually pissed.

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#84

Post by matwood » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

subsubzero wrote: post #26

Terrible communication in that letter, I love brutally honest and to the point communication. Everyone's time is precious don't beat around the bush just say: we are laying off 10% of the companies staff due to macro-economic conditions beyond our control, this coupled with decreased customer spending and hiring like this day would never happen lead us to this decision. Sorry :(

Flowery language is fine, except when talking about money or people's career/job/livelihood (which is really money again).

There's also space between what was said in this letter and brutal honesty. It should be concise and clear.

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#85

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:14 PM UTC

mittermayr wrote: post #55

I think it's sad to see a CEO who doesn't seem to care all too much about hiding the fact that it isn't just the Ukraine, inflation, and it probably isn't the recession that is demanding this. It's everything he and his team did leading up to this. A convenient way also to use points at everything around us to justify a trim and rebalance of the culture and operating cost. I always felt that good CEOs (from a culture…

Bizarre. People expect either (a) company management to be completely clairvoyant about what the future will hold, or (b) when their best estimates about the future change, I guess folks expect management just continue charging ahead until their company goes bankrupt.

I also totally disagree with this statement, if you're implying that you think good CEOs should layoff as few people as possible: "I always felt that good CEOs (from a culture perspective) make it clear that in times of trouble, the first priority is not the business, but everyone working there."

If anything, I think good CEOs are clear about making tough, painful decisions, and they make them quickly and move on as fast as possible. There is nothing worse than everyone seeing the writing on the wall (e.g. lots of people with not enough work to do), but feeling that management is paralyzed by fear to change it.

What's going on is really not that complex. Companies (and MANY companies, certainly not just Klarna), planned for number of employees based on estimates about the future state of the world, and that future state of the world turned out to be drastically impacted by all the events mentioned in that letter.

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#86

Post by junon » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

atty wrote: post #21

Honestly, what a terrible letter. Did not once say the words layoff or let go. Using phrases like “continue to be part of klarna’s journey”. Good lord, is this a business or a cult? And not a single line about concrete steps they will take to support the layoffs (multi-month severance packages, etc). Hopefully that is what they intend, but as of right now, this is pretty disappointing.

Ehhh I disagree. I think it was a very tasteful letter. Bluntness isn't always the best choice - I say this as an incredibly direct person.

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#87

Post by mytailorisrich » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:16 PM UTC

darrenf wrote: post #74

mytailorisrich wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that they are not require to negotiate notice, pay, etc. which are already specified in contracts and statutes. What they are required to do if they plan to make more than 20 people redundant is to conduct a formal 'consulation', which means that they have to discuss with the employees potentially concerned about the reasons and how to keep redundancies to a minimum. Companies may offer more than they have to fo…

You’re right, of course. Consultation was the word I failed to recall. In both my redundancies, notice periods were negotiated because both employers wanted us to work longer than our notice. “We’re getting rid of your roles, but can you just deliver this unreasonable project first?”

That does wonder for motivation and quality of work...

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#88

Post by mingusrude » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:17 PM UTC

phphphphp wrote: post #70

mingusrude wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As commented above, you have to do it this way in Sweden, you have to announce in public that you are going to lay off people and then from there on you negotiate with the union if you plan to not do stack-based firing (last-in-first-out).

That’s not what they’re doing though, they’ve announced it and plan to tell people over the next few days, certainly not enough time to negotiate with a union. They’ve already chosen who is being let go, they’re simply delaying the process of informing people because (presumably) managers only have a certain capacity for meetings: they think a delayed face-to-face meeting is better than an immediate email.

For Swedish employees it's not as easy as calling someone into an office and lay them off. You can of course tell someone that you want to lay them off but from there to actually doing it you have to negotiate with the union and/or the employee.

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#89

Post by phphphphp » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

rmbyrro wrote: post #51

vmception wrote: post #3

If you're being fired > The invite will be titled “Meeting regarding your role at Klarna”. lol ouch! They should make it a gamble where everyone has a meeting and you don't know what the outcome will be! But since thats even more resource intensive I would much prefer a mass pre-recorded zoom call over that. I can understand that the former thing has better PR than the latter thing. But I think employed Americans are…

Lots of people also criticize mass calls. There's no way to please everyone. Especially in a mass lay-off.

Right, a lay-off is a terrible experience for everyone and there’s no “right” way to do it… but there are less awful ways.

There’s 7,000 Klarna employees currently wondering if they’re losing their jobs! If they had simply informed everyone immediately, that would be just 10% of the people feeling those feelings.

Setting aside employees for a moment, from a company perspective, the harm you’re doing to your organisation by giving everyone a week to worry about being let go is ridiculous, it’s self immolation. Every single klarna employee is, in this moment, thinking about getting a new job.

Mass impersonal announcements are brutal, absolutely, but this is even worse.

Re: Klarna – Company announcement from CEO regarding layoffs

#90

Post by o_m » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #69

nowherebeen wrote: post #28

Klarna seems like horrible company to work for from what I have read on HN. IQ test for interviews, mass layoffs with little self awareness, and very low pay compared to the US.

A horrible company for consumers too. Take those who can least afford to purchase something and give them purchasing power that they don't have and can't get from anyone else.

They are using a lot of dark UX patterns to trick you into thinking you paid, but then you start receiving late fees because you didn't actually pay them, even if you gave them your credit card information.