Reminds me of why I work only for myself. What a maroon!

The boss of a US mortgage company, who fired hundreds of his staff in a Zoom meeting has said he is "deeply sorry" for the way the lay-offs were handled.

The sackings were necessary said Vishal Garg, but he accepted he had "blundered the execution" and "embarrassed" them.

"I failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for the individuals who were affected," he said in a letter on the firm's website.

Mr Garg was heavily criticised after he sacked 900 staff in an online meeting.

"I am deeply sorry and am committed to learning from this situation and doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be," he said.

Mr Garg said he had realised "the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse".

The firm, Better.com, a start-up offering mortgages, is based in New York.

US boss fires 900 employees over Zoom
The big company Christmas party is off this year
'My billion pound company has no HR department'
"If you're on this call you're part of the unlucky group being laid off," Mr Garg told staff in the call last week. "Your employment here is terminated. Effective immediately."

A recording of the call was shared on social media, prompting comments that sacking people this way was "cold", "harsh" and "a horrible move", especially in the run up to Christmas.


Media caption,
Vishal Garg fires about 900 of his staff on a single Zoom call.
Better.com, which aims to use technology to make the housebuying process "faster and more efficient", confirmed earlier this year that it plans to float the company on the stock market. A deal is likely to value the business - which Mr Garg founded in 2015 - at between $6.9bn (£5.2bn) and $7.7bn.

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How Vishal Garg told people they were fired
"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 so that hopefully we can continue to thrive and deliver on our mission.

"This isn't news that you're 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. This is the second time in my career that I'm doing this and I do not want to do this. The last time I did it I cried. This time I hope to be stronger. But we are laying off about 15% of the company for [a number of] reasons: the market, efficiency and performances and productivity.

"If you're on this call you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated. Effective immediately."

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Mr Garg told staff he was grateful for their contribution.

"I believe in you, I believe in Better, and I believe that working together we can make homeownership better together," he wrote.

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A right way to fire staff?
"Organisations do have to make job cuts sometimes, it is a hard reality," says Rachel Suff, senior policy adviser on employee relations at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

"But how they go about it and the humanity they approach it with can have a fundamental impact on how people deal with that shocking news."

Boss firing employee
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Ms Suff points out that the situation facing Better.com's staff in the US would not happen in the UK. Legally, UK employers have to enter a consultation period with workers of at least 30 days, or 45 days if more than 100 people are being made redundant.

During that period "people should be given the right phrasing, eased into it, given warning, prepared for the news and explained the reasons why", she says.

UK employers also have to look for alternative roles for workers. "An employer really needs to tell people that they've exhausted every possible alternative, it is the last thing they wanted to do - it is about being able to leave with your dignity and respect intact."

Ms Suff adds that while a lot of focus regarding Better.com has been about Mr Garg using Zoom to fire staff, the approach is incredibly important.

"If you notice as well [Mr Garg] talks about the impact on himself. He says: 'I cried the last time'. But who's losing their job here? It was very rich, talking about the impact on himself - what about them?"



link: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59573146

I thought they were 900 slackers only working two out of eight hours a day. What’s the issue?

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

During that period "people should be given the right phrasing, eased into it, given warning, prepared for the news and explained the reasons why", she says.

UK employers also have to look for alternative roles for workers. "An employer really needs to tell people that they've exhausted every possible alternative, it is the last thing they wanted to do - it is about being able to leave with your dignity and respect intact."

Ms Suff adds that while a lot of focus regarding Better.com has been about Mr Garg using Zoom to fire staff, the approach is incredibly important.

Ridiculous horseshit. Getting laid off obviously sucks big time, but drawing the process out like employees are a bunch of little children who can't cope with life is New Age BS. Getting the deed over with quickly and moving on is the best approach for everyone in my opinion.

This woman though, my goodness.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
I thought they were 900 slackers only working two out of eight hours a day. What’s the issue?

Yeah... Shortly after the Zoom call, he made a blog post (initially anonymously but then he later confirmed he was the author) in which he claimed that the people that were laid off were "stealing from the company by only working 2 hours per day".

Now he's apologizing for how he laid them off?

So were they lazy shitbirds that needed to be canned, or did he just make that stuff up to attempt to justify the layoffs in a way that he wouldn't get made out to be the "bad guy".

People wonder why there is workplace violence. Anyone who would terminate employees in such a fashion is an insensitive idiot. Choosing to send this on Christmas Eve would be even better. It is not a question of babying people, it is a matter of basic decency.

When I tried out another shop it went well until they decided to close up shop.
They called everyone in and handed us our final checks, said thanks now close your boxes and have a nice life.

While that sucked, I had another job about 15 minutes into the drive home.

Garg is toxic and he should have been the one to go.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
I thought they were 900 slackers only working two out of eight hours a day. What’s the issue?

Bingo. This is the issue with many people transitioning to working from home and either not having the skills, diligence, work ethic, or integrity required to perform the job they're being paid to do. I have several friends who own companies that are suffering through similar problems with their current work from home employees. One guy who owns a local commercial contracting company has already told me that after January 1 all of his employees will be returning to the office or they'll be looking for new jobs.

"Work from home" is a leftist scam to concentrate on everything but work.

These slackers are the bane of my existence, turning in shoddy, hurried work at the last possible minute.

They are too focused on their recreation, than being productive.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
People wonder why there is workplace violence. Anyone who would terminate employees in such a fashion is an insensitive idiot. Choosing to send this on Christmas Eve would be even better. It is not a question of babying people, it is a matter of basic decency.

I was specifically addressing the way this silly woman advocates firing people, not the method this particular asshat chose to do it, which I've heard some people describe as the Squid Game method.

I have heard of other companies doing similar, I believe it was Nortel that invited people to an off site meeting and laid them off. They could not go back to the office to grab any of their belongings.

I once laid off 15-20 people at once, I called them all into the conference room and did it. It sucked, I am sure it sucked worse for them. I found my voice breaking a couple times but it had to be done. I ah wanted to keep 3-4 people as they were quite good but HR said if I was laying them off it had to be all of the resources....I was able to hire back at least one in a different role.

900 is a bit large I would think, normally you have HR with you to outline packages, COBRA etc.

Regarding the time of year....yes it sucks but many companies do the same to improve their $$ numbers before the end of year.

One major company I was with would release contractors on their 45 day leave (Co-employment protection....thanks CA ), often even if they were not at the end of their 18mo in December.

I worked for a medical care facility that used retired cops for the security staff. Good job with benefits. Then they figured out that rent-a thugs could be contracted for a third of what we were costing them. They called all of us into a "departmental meeting" and told us our positions were eliminated and we were terminated. We were handed severance checks and and an info package on maintaining our heath care for 90 days, if we paid for it out of pocket.
No offer of other jobs within the organization.
No thanks for a job well done. And the final insult? When I walked out of the building, the parking lot had multiple police cars staged in it. Not only did they think we were expendable, but they thought we would react violently.
People I had worked for several years who I thought knew and trusted me showed me the error of those thoughts!
Several months later, I ran into one of the nursing staff who told me they discovered the rent-a-thugs were idiots and that there were several of them they were actually afraid of!

One time a company I used to work for went around telling certain people that there was a meeting in the conference room later that day. Somehow the telephone game turned that into a party in the conference room. It was not uncommon for the company to hold certain celebrations there for birthdays. work anniversaries or promotions and such so it wasn’t out of the ordinary to hear there was something going on. The whole company ended up showing up for the “party” only to find out that only a few people got invited, and that those people no longer had a job.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
"Work from home" is a leftist scam to concentrate on everything but work.

These slackers are the bane of my existence, turning in shoddy, hurried work at the last possible minute.

They are too focused on their recreation, than being productive.

LOL! "Work from home" isn't your problem. Hiring the wrong people is your problem. Fix it.

When I was fresh out of college my roommate and good friend got called out of town for a company meeting. They were instructed to drive their company vehicle, no flights. They gathered in the conference room of a hotel in assigned seats, several hundred of them. The president took the stage, told them that their final check along with a one way airline ticket home was in the envelope on the table at their assigned seat and to please turn in their keys and computer on the way out.

He called me and asked me to pick him up at the airport.

What a Scrooge piece of shit

Two weeks before Christmas??

He better get a bodyguard and have someone check his car each day.

Layoffs are customarily done just before Christmas.

Back in my days supervising a section, I had to do it a couple of times.

Really sucked.

Wow thats obscene.

I remember a website called "fxxxedcompany.com" where people would post egregious examples of crap like this from the dotcom bust in the early 2000's. Such as you and some of your colleagues would be called to a conference room and told you were fired, led to the exit and your personal items were in a box in the parking lot.

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:
One time a company I used to work for went around telling certain people that there was a meeting in the conference room later that day. Somehow the telephone game turned that into a party in the conference room. It was not uncommon for the company to hold certain celebrations there for birthdays. work anniversaries or promotions and such so it wasn’t out of the ordinary to hear there was something going on. The whole company ended up showing up for the “party” only to find out that only a few people got invited, and that those people no longer had a job.

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo Jones:
Wow thats obscene.

I remember a website called "fxxxedcompany.com" where people would post egregious examples of crap like this from the dotcom bust in the early 2000's. Such as you and some of your colleagues would be called to a conference room and told you were fired, led to the exit and your personal items were in a box in the parking lot.

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:
One time a company I used to work for went around telling certain people that there was a meeting in the conference room later that day. Somehow the telephone game turned that into a party in the conference room. It was not uncommon for the company to hold certain celebrations there for birthdays. work anniversaries or promotions and such so it wasn’t out of the ordinary to hear there was something going on. The whole company ended up showing up for the “party” only to find out that only a few people got invited, and that those people no longer had a job.

To be fair to that company, the HR manager and GM were let go shortly thereafter and that company turned out to be one of the most generous when it came to layoffs. I worked there for 18 more years and they always gave employees notice of any where from a few weeks to a few months before their job ended, they tried their best to move people to other jobs and also offered to move some people to different offices and would pay moving expenses. They also paid really generous severance packages and had recruiters come in to help place people they couldn’t keep.

11MM jobs available right now … get to work