So on the morning of January
20th, I actually woke up to one of my friend's text
messages that said, Hey, were you just laid off by
Google? I responded saying, I don't
know what you're talking about. So I went to my work
laptop, and lo and behold, when I opened it, I was
forbidden. I was locked out. I was just shocked, just
chilled to the bone to read this email that was sent to
my personal email to say "You are no longer an
employee." I'd been at Google for four and a half
years. My performance was great. This was something that
kind of blew me out of the water. So these new virtual
layoffs, I think are very inhumane. They're very
impersonal, and they don't treat you as an actual
human being. Virtual layoffs are when
companies decide to lay off, let go and terminate roles
of team members by email, by phone, by text,
or even by video apps like Zoom or
pre-recorded videos. We are seeing a rise in
virtual layoffs. First, its because of the
pandemic. Pandemic normalized the
adoption of remote work and virtual communications. Organizations realized that
it's possible to conduct business virtually,
including communicating difficult messages to
employees such as layoff announcements. Also, they
learned that probably virtual layoffs can be more
cost and time effective for big organizations. They don't need to hire
external contractor and send them to all different
offices across the nation. Just imagine how much
travel expenses they are saving. As the pandemic hit the US
economy in March 2020, it erased nearly 20 million
jobs in a matter of weeks. The unemployment rate
rocketed to 14.7%, the highest level since the
Great Depression. As remote work became
widespread and interest rates hit rock bottom
levels. Big tech companies went on a hiring spree. In 2020, Amazon added half a
million employees and over 38% increase. Microsoft added 18,000, an
11% increase. Meta added over 13,000, a
30% increase. And Google-parent Alphabet
added over 16,000, a nearly 14% increase, while Apple
added less than 7000. Federal Reserve raising
interest rates to a new range of 0.25 to ... Then the Fed began its fight
against inflation, raising interest rates at a pace
not seen in decades. That hit tech companies hard
because they relied on low-interest rates to fuel
growth. Last week, he fired more
than 900 people on one Zoom call. Better.com, a mortgage
lending company, was one of the many companies that had
to lay off their employees because of this. The way
its CEO handled the firing received a huge backlash. If you're on this call. You are part of the unlucky
group. Your employment here is
terminated effective immediately. I think what
happened in 2021 December was that we were amongst
the first companies to have to do major reductions in
force as the economic environment was changing. We were a company of less
than 100 people in 2017 and we became a company of
10,000 people by 2021. And my leadership style,
which had been all about grow, grow, grow and really
growth at all costs meant that the focus of the
business was about doing what it needed to do to
grow and less about how people were feeling about
it. A lot of the criticism was
deserved. We made a mistake. We learned from it, and now
we're better. The Better.com incident was
just a start. More and more big tech
companies began adopting virtual layoffs. I want to say,you know,
upfront that I take full responsibility for this d
ecision. In November of 2022, Meta
laid off 11,000 workers, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
delivered the news over a remote video call. ...and for deciding how we
execute that, including things like this. And in 2022, as soon as Elon
Musk bought Twitter, he laid off half its workforce with
some staff losing access to their company's email
without prior notice. Virtual layoffs have
continued in 2023 as well. In January, Google laid off
thousands of its employees over email. Google was the company I
wanted to work for, and I felt so amazing that I was
inside. I felt like I was a
foreigner that really I had to keep pinching myself,
that I was there. I mean, I utilize the gym,
I utilize the bikes, I utilize massage. I utilized every type of
perk that was possible. And I never thought that it
one day snap it would be gone. And I think it's very
convenient to send an email on a Friday where someone's
not coming into the office and tell them that they no
longer have a job. It makes it very easy on
the leadership and it creates a scenario where
there's at least likelihood for emotional fallout or
for pushback to occur. So I think it's really
designed to help support leadership and management
to make it easier for them to do these types of
layoffs. As more and more virtual
layoffs dominate the headlines, there's a debate
raging online over layoff etiquette. In April,
McDonald's temporarily shut its corporate office and
fired hundreds of employees virtually. Frankly, I think. Mcdonald's
is teaching a master class in layoffs. They
broadcasted back in January that they were coming. People were able to
prepare. Now April has come and they're letting people
know in the comfort of their own home, they're able to
maintain confidentiality. They don't have to walk
their stuff out down the hallway and be escorted
out. If I were getting laid off,
I'd want to be laid off at home, not at the office. I think it's lazy
leadership. You know, we're talking about thousands of
people's lives that have been turned upside down. And it's one of the most,
you know, impactful moments in somebody's career to be
let go or to be laid off. And it lacks humanity and
it lacks an ethical and a moral component. When you work for a big tech
company. You had this assurance that
you were going to be okay, that you were part of this
greater thing, that you were part of this culture that
really meant something, that you were making a
difference. And at any moment snap, you could be
axed. Google's extreme
cost-cutting measures, which have included 12,000
workers losing their jobs, has translated to big
upside moves in its stock. Its CEO, Sundar Pichai, has
also done well. He made $226 million in
2022, thanks to a $218 million stock award, plus
his regular salary and benefits. Pichai is among
the highest-paid CEOs in the US. Hey, good on him. You know,
he's got a couple hundred million dollars of bonus
and salaries and everything else. I think the thing
that really stings for me is in the letters that came
out about the layoffs, the communications that came
out from Sundar Pichai and other leaders was he's
taking full responsibility. And a full responsibility
means taking a massive bonus after laying off several
thousand people at their company. To me, that's a
huge red flag. Google did not respond to
CNBC's repeated requests for comment. Companies have
been facing mounting criticism over their
increasing use of virtual layoffs. Onwards HR is one
of those platforms that helps companies in the
layoff process. So many organizations roll
out the red carpet for those as part of the hiring
process, but very few have put any attention to how
they treat employees when they leave the
organization. But right now, that is something that
needs to be top of mind for organizations because you
never know when it's going to be a final goodbye. And it's important to
really leave a great last impression. It is not about the leader. It's about the employees
who are being impacted. And the leader must talk
about that, spend time acknowledging that
difficulty. Instead of questioning, is
it dignified to do it virtual or in person? We should think of better
ways of if it's going to be virtual, how we can do it
in a dignified way for workers, and how workers
can prepare themselves to deal with situations like
that. If you look closely at the
current job market, you might scratch your head. On the one hand, mass tech
layoffs continue dominating headlines and on the other
hand, the labor market still seems strong. In April, the
US economy added 253,000 jobs, and unemployment
dropped to 3.4%, tied for the lowest level since
1969. The jobs market is
incredibly fragmented and what that meant is that
large firms, especially large firms tied to tech,
hired aggressively during the pandemic, and now
they're right sizing that hiring as people relied
less on the tech sector. They're doing more things
related to goods and services, and getting out
there in terms of leisure and hospitality. And so you're seeing some
big firms with big headlines, but that is not
yet translating into the overall labor market. And in particular, we've
seen layoffs at companies like in Big Tech because
those are sectors that have hired enormously during the
pandemic and maybe misread some of the pandemic-era
trends as long-term structural shifts. And it
turns out that those were more temporary. So because
of the potential recession on the horizon, we're
seeing a lot of companies that have to reevaluate. And unfortunately, some are
deciding that they need to lay off workers to get into
a more sustainable place. Unfortunately, virtual
layoffs are here to stay. And what companies can do
to improve this process is to actually bring a
human-centered approach that cares about the person
behind the screen. And so I think companies are
opting for using Zoom or virtual mechanisms over
in-person mechanisms, primarily due to working
from home and the culture of working from home that has
really permeated itself across most major
corporations in the United States today. So with this new reality of
just being cut off and laid off by any company. I think what I've learned
and I think what people need to do is to really be
invested in yourself, be invested in what you do
really, really well and don't invest in the
culture. It sounds counterintuitive, but just
do the bare minimum when it comes to actually investing
in the company, but invest in yourself, because
really, at the end of the day, it's only you that you
can rely on.
