I don't think this was a bad approach; it may be better than the alternatives.
The "rip the band-aid" approach, while impersonal, avoids days of ambiguity over who is impacted by layoffs and who is not. I have been through a mass layoff; the most stressful part was waiting to find out who was impacted. I'd much rather know immediately, even if that means notifying me with everyone else at the same time, in a Zoom call.
As long as each employee receives a 1-1 follow-up call with someone in HR to review the details and get a chance to ask any questions, I think this was a sensible way to approach a horrible reality.
The problem is it's impossible to schedule 900 layoff meetings to occur at the same time, so you end up with layoffs ongoing for multiple days or weeks. Of course everyone knows what is going on within the first hour, so then there is a long period where all productivity stops while everyone waits anxiously to find out whether they should keep working or just pack up.
Whether leadership deserves criticism for getting to a point where such a huge layoff is necessary is another topic altogether.
> He didn't mention the $750m (£565m) cash
> infusion Better.com received from investors last week.
I like the BBC but this sort of lazy judgemental journalism annoys me.
The inference here is that because investors put in cash, the business isn’t in trouble and he shouldn’t have to fire anybody.
In all likelihood, the investors had to put in cash because the business is in trouble and it meant he was able to fire less people.
The critique of the zoom thing is unfair too. If he’d brought 900 people on site during a pandemic just to fire them, he’d have been criticised for that.
This is just a manager having to make some incredibly tough calls in very difficult times.
Easy to snipe from the sidelines when you don’t have to make those difficult decisions.
> The critique of the zoom thing is unfair too. If he’d brought 900 people on site during a pandemic just to fire them, he’d have been criticised for that.
This would have been a super interesting case. How many of those people would have complained bitterly at being forced to come back into an office at all? And then for the purpose of being sent off forever.
Real issue raised by the story is 900 at once, with basically full clarity into the whole group dynamic. Imagine doing that in person!
Being laid off over Zoom goes with Covid time. By now quite a few of us have never set foot in our local employers’ offices, even during the hiring process.
4 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 15.4 ms ] threadThe "rip the band-aid" approach, while impersonal, avoids days of ambiguity over who is impacted by layoffs and who is not. I have been through a mass layoff; the most stressful part was waiting to find out who was impacted. I'd much rather know immediately, even if that means notifying me with everyone else at the same time, in a Zoom call.
As long as each employee receives a 1-1 follow-up call with someone in HR to review the details and get a chance to ask any questions, I think this was a sensible way to approach a horrible reality.
The problem is it's impossible to schedule 900 layoff meetings to occur at the same time, so you end up with layoffs ongoing for multiple days or weeks. Of course everyone knows what is going on within the first hour, so then there is a long period where all productivity stops while everyone waits anxiously to find out whether they should keep working or just pack up.
Whether leadership deserves criticism for getting to a point where such a huge layoff is necessary is another topic altogether.
I like the BBC but this sort of lazy judgemental journalism annoys me.
The inference here is that because investors put in cash, the business isn’t in trouble and he shouldn’t have to fire anybody.
In all likelihood, the investors had to put in cash because the business is in trouble and it meant he was able to fire less people.
The critique of the zoom thing is unfair too. If he’d brought 900 people on site during a pandemic just to fire them, he’d have been criticised for that.
This is just a manager having to make some incredibly tough calls in very difficult times.
Easy to snipe from the sidelines when you don’t have to make those difficult decisions.
This would have been a super interesting case. How many of those people would have complained bitterly at being forced to come back into an office at all? And then for the purpose of being sent off forever.
Real issue raised by the story is 900 at once, with basically full clarity into the whole group dynamic. Imagine doing that in person!
Being laid off over Zoom goes with Covid time. By now quite a few of us have never set foot in our local employers’ offices, even during the hiring process.