Indian-origin CEOs in the US were getting a lot of positive news coverage recently, after Parag Agarwal’s ascension as Twitter CEO. Parag’s new role led to a fresh round of opinion pieces on why Indian-origin CEOs are doing so well outside India and the counterpoint on how many Indian CEOs are doing so well inside India and how we should all be first proud of the Indian CEOs inside India before we can start to feel proud about Indian-origin CEOs doing well outside India.
In between all this, there was also a third angle about why the opinion pieces around Indian-origin CEOs outside India are always about male CEOs and never include women CEOs, like this compilation shows.
As if to put a dhristi (nazar lagaana) to all this positivity, an Indian-origin CEO in the US laid off 15% of the company’s workforce (800+ employees) via a Zoom call!
Considering most Indian newspapers reported this news yesterday, there is a fresh interest to search for the video of Vishal Garg, CEO of Better (a housing mortgage company) delivering the miserable piece of news to 800+ employees.
Here it is.
At the outset, there is absolutely no way that the news of 800+ people being laid off just weeks before Christmas is going to land softly.
No matter what is said, by whoever in the senior management or HR… nothing will make the news sound better (pun unintended) because it is a terrible, terrible announcement any way you see it. Not just the mere optics, but the content and emotion inside that announcement is completely loaded against any consideration. It can be understood in just one way and it is incredibly painful.
But, Vishal chose to deliver this announcement in THE worst possible way imaginable. So, a piece of news that is already loaded against the announcer and is bound to make everyone absolutely miserable is made far, far, far worse due to the way it was articulated and delivered.
Are there better ways to deliver this already miserable piece of management decision? To some extent, yes. The end result will be the same, but the way it is handled could be done in a way that doesn’t alienate or cause revulsion to those coming across the news and more importantly, to the 85% of the remaining employees.
To start with, asking 800+ employees to join a single, firing-squad equivalent of a video call is terrible in every conceivable way. Could it have been mildly better if the affected employees were clubbed in smaller groups of say 15-30 and told about the terrible news awaiting them? Possibly.
This would obviously require more time and effort from the CEO, and he (in the case of Better, specifically) perhaps needs to rope in more people to join in the effort instead of taking it all on himself (bound to be phenomenally taxing, emotionally).
Next, the very articulation of how Vishal made the announcement.
I have seen some arguments for Vishal who felt that it is best handled like a band-aid – removed from the skin in one quick move instead of extending the pain by doing it slowly. But that probably assumes only one perspective – that is Vishal’s. To the people receiving that news, the reaction may not be that of relief that the news was handled quickly. For them, it is bound to feel incredibly insulting and blunt, completely lacking any empathy or humanity, whatever is possible under the circumstances.
Here is the text of what he uttered (that has now become viral, understandably).
Hi everyone,
Thank you for joining. I come to you with not great news. The market has changed, as you know. And we have to move with it in order to survive and hopefully, we can continue to thrive and deliver on our mission.
This isn’t the news you are going to want to hear. But ultimately it was my decision and I wanted you to hear it from me. It’s been a really really challenging decision to make and this is the second time in my career I’m doing this and I do not, do not want to do this.
The last time I did this, I cried. This time I hope to be stronger.
We are laying off about 15% of the company for a number of reasons. The market, efficiency, and performances, and productivity.
If you are on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off.
Your employment here is terminated effective immediately.
What does this mean… what’s next? You are going to get an email from HR to your personal email address regarding the details of your severance and your benefits. For all US employees, we are providing 4 weeks of severance, 1 month of full benefits, and 2 months of Coverra (insurance company) for which we will pay the premium. So 3 months total benefits if we add Coverra.
If you don’t get a communication from askHR at Better dot com before the end of the day, you can email askHR at Better dot com.
Thank you for each and every one of your individual contributions to Better.
The worst part of this announcement was this: “This is the second time in my career I’m doing this and I do not, do not want to do this. The last time I did this, I cried. This time I hope to be stronger.”
This announcement that affects 800+ employees is NOT about how the CEO feels. Yes, the CEO is human too and he would be feeling something about the decision, but on the other hand, he also has to consider the feelings of 800+ employees who had put their trust in the organization. He would need to put that as a priority, during this communication, instead of making it about his feelings.
It may be better that the CEO share his feelings with someone who cares for him, personally, instead of sharing that with 800+ people who are going to be directly affected by his utterances.
This was better done as an all-employee communication instead of communicating it to only those affected. The employees who are not being laid off will anyway get to hear about the news and they need to continue to want to work at the organization instead of thinking poorly of it because it handled the layoffs in a ghastly manner.
For the all-employees call/email, the articulation needs to be different.
Hi,
At the outset, let me apologize for the short notice for this Zoom call invite.
At Better, the people—our employees—are the most valuable contributor to our success. And given the stringent focus on our recruitment efforts, we hire the best after a thorough interview process.
Unfortunately, the market conditions at this point have pushed us to a situation where we are forced to make an incredibly painful decision to let go of some of our employees.
Before we arrived at his painful decision that is bound to be excruciating to this affected, we explored the following options.
1 …
2 …
3 …
4 …
But, we are left with the last resort now, and that is to let go of some of our employees.
Those who will be affected by the layoffs would be informed separately by HR, but I wanted to let you know the context that led us to this decision.
Let me reiterate that this decision has no bearing on the talent, efforts, and capability of those who are being laid off. To demonstrate that, we are ensuring that the following efforts are being put forth.
A coordinated effort from our recruitment team to help those impacted by the layoff find alternative employment. This includes …
In terms of separation benefits …
We are extending the following employee benefits to you for a period of …. to assist you in your effort to find alternative employment.
Companies large and small have announced layoffs in the recent past that Vishal could look up to and find ways to handle the announcement better. I wrote about Airbnb (laid off 25% of the company in May 2020) and Zomato’s (laid off about 13% of the company in May 2020) layoffs last year. Both Brian Chesky and Deepinder Goyal chose to communicate with all the employees while announcing the layoffs, and not with only those who are getting laid off. That makes a big difference in the way the news lands and affects the content of the communication as well.
I did read about Vishal Garg’s past outbursts – they are rather abrasive. But I presume Better has a communications, PR, and HR team that could have made the right recommendation on how this announcement should have been handled. Perhaps they did, and perhaps Vishal did not listen to them – I don’t know. But what is being seen now by the world affects the entire company that includes the remaining 85% employees – not just the 15% who were laid off.
This did happen, however – “Better.com’s PR, comms, marketing heads submit resignations in wake of layoffs fiasco“!
Those resignations follow an apology by Vishal Garg posted on the company website.
