Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired | Hacker News Reader

Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

wired.co.uk

223 pointsheadalgorithm154 comments

Being from the US it wasn't immediately clear to me why they would do this.

Found the relevant part of the article:

> In Poland, workers say they were told by their line managers and HR that they were underperforming and would be terminated if they didn’t leave voluntarily. But in Portugal mutual agreements stated that dismissals were a result of a reduction of 40 per cent in the group’s activity and a 30 per cent excess in staff numbers. By getting employees to voluntarily leave, Revolut has avoided launching a group redundancy consultation, that, among other things would give employees the right to severance payments and the chance to be offered alternative roles within the company. “[Mutual agreement] is better for Revolut because they can’t go to labour court [employment tribunal],” says the source from the HR department. “The way they prepare the terminations are so bad that if someone would go to court Revolut would lose,” the source claims.

Sounds like the employees should go to court, then.

It sounds like the employees are foreigners who are probably unfamiliar with the polish legal system, with no income or health insurance as more pressing issues.

> It sounds like the employees are foreigners who are probably unfamiliar with the polish legal system

I would be a little surprised if this was true. One of the big reasons for Western European companies to hire in Poland is because Eastern European countries are very cheap.

For most Western European companies, Polish people _are_ the foreigners (along with all the unfair preconceptions and prejudices that comes with that).

Just like many Polish people work in say England or Sweden, Ukrainians work in Poland. Exactly the same dynamic.

Did you read the article? It specifically mentions that the Polish office has workers from India, Chile and Italy

Actually, it is exceptionally easy as a foreigner to find a job in Poland and there’s a very big demand for them. Many multinationals move their seats to Poland for this. As a foreigner, you generally get higher than the Polish average salaries but still lower than in other countries.

I automatically assumed this was a ploy to dodge unemployment/redundancy benefits for employees. This also happens in the US. Much harder to get benefits if you voluntarily quit versus get fired or laid off.

Which is why US companies sometimes pay people to voluntarily retire instead of laying them off.

I was curious what the benefit was to the company if the unemployment insurance is already paid (sunk cost) so I looked it up -

> Employers with more unemployment claims against them will pay a higher rate, and employers with fewer claims will pay less.

Yes, indirectly.

Businesses in the US generally have to pay into unemployment "premiums" to the appropriate state labor dept. If the business has a lot of terminations, then its premiums go up. However, employees resigning doesn't result in higher unemployment premiums because those employees aren't eligible for unemployment benefits.

However, forcing employees to resign instead of be fired is a huge labor law violation, and in many states also constitutes unemployment fraud. On top of paying fines to the state labor dept, at a minimum you'd be paying employees for lost wages due to the unlawful terminations (or lost UE benefits)...and if the company is stupid enough to fight this in court, usually a much larger settlement or award for employees' financial losses plus treble damages (aka punitive damages). Usually ends up costing the company 10x of what they thought they would save.

I find this approach really weird. I’m not sure about Poland, but at least in the the UK, for a mutual agreement (or settlement agreement) to be valid, the employee _must_ receive independent legal guidance.

Anything else and the dismissal would be completely illegal.

I’m not sure, but I would guess the Poland has similar or equivalent worker protections (the EU is generally pretty hot on worker protection). Which means that Revolut are opening themselves up to quite a bit future legal liability and pain. Doubly now that it’s in the press and there’s probably lawyers who see an opportunity to earn a paycheque and do some public good.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the end that obligation is on you - so you can just sign the bit that says "I declare that I received independent advice" and the other party is fine. If you then turn around and say "but it was a lie!" the company can just put their hands up, it's not their problem.

In the UK the company needs to get certification from the provider of the independent legal advice, otherwise the agreement is void.

Normal behaviour is for the company to pay for the legal advice up to some reasonable limit.

In Poland legal consultation is not required and parting ways via mutual agreement is common here. While this system is often abused by companies there are many cases where it benefits employees too.

In the US it isn't immediately obvious why it would work, either. As a worker you're much better off being laid off than quitting. "Firing" when it is pretty flagrantly just a mass lay-off shouldn't impact future hiring.

I've seen a lot of hiring managers miss out on great candidates because they assume that someone laid off probably wasn't a top performer ("if they were, the company would have found a way to keep them"). Of course, reality is great people do get laid off when companies draw really broad lines like "everyone hired within the past year" or "the entire division of X". Or sometimes it's just being on the wrong side of your manager, director, or whoever is making the decision. Hell, sometimes it's "all the people who we felt were at risk of leaving in the next few months anyway".

But the other reason companies in the US do this is to shield against liability. If you are terminated, you could later claim wrongful termination. While if you resign, it's much harder.

SWE @ Lyft: Just one data point, but we went through a layoff last month. Every person I knew closely who was laid off had one or more weak performance reviews in the last year.

Not saying this is always the case, but there is some truth in this concern that might make hiring managers weary.

Sure. Like any generalization, there is always some truth. But it's still a generalization.

Also, generally, well-run companies don't need covid-like events to cull the herd. They're managing low-performers out regularly.

> I've seen a lot of hiring managers miss out on great candidates because they assume that someone laid off probably wasn't a top performer

The distinction I was trying to draw was between firing-for-cause and layoffs; I believe there is more negative association with the former.

> But the other reason companies in the US do this is to shield against liability. If you are terminated, you could later claim wrongful termination. While if you resign, it's much harder.

Pretty hard to claim wrongful termination for a non-cause layoff in the US with typical at-will employment.

Why would any employee take that deal though? When would it make sense to have your employer tell you to quit because they don’t want to lay you off and you just do it??

A company may threaten with disciplinary dismissal which in theory could diminish your prospects on the job market. I never heard of this being an actual problem (unless your position requires background checks) but maybe I just work in an industry that doesn't care about this stuff.

I don't know about Poland, but in most EU countries you can not just fire someone and stop paying them. There is a termination period the length of which is relative to the time they were employed at the company. After an initial 'trial' period of typically 6 months, during which both parties can end the contract without notice, the notice period can run between 3 to 24 months for the employer, and 1 to 6 months for the employee. While in case of a firing the employee is in theory still working during that period, in practice most knowledge or commercial workers are cut from access to the company's premises and systems the second after the firing meeting. Companies try to avoid having to pay salary during the termination period by pressuring employees to sign a voluntary immediate mutual contract ending agreement.

Revolut is really scary organization... used them for a year or so, and then one day locked my account... harassed me for 6 months, asking for all sorts of documents, which I provided them. then one day, they closed my account, and sent back 2K balance to random people who sent me money in the past. When contacted them via twitter, the blocked my the same day :)

My story with revolut is one day, without warning before, when I opened the app, I'd seen info to update it before I do anything with my money. And in Google Store there was no newer release for my version of Android. The only way to complain is to do this in-app so I was not able to do even this. Basically, I was cut off my money, completely.

After two days I found on their site a form to cancel my account. Which was still not easy, before this they tried to keep me as a customer (suggesting for example to buy newer phone :) )

Yeah I knew they were a little farfetched when I saw their head of engineering job spec

https://web.archive.org/web/20200406205828/https://jobs.leve...

> School/university Olympic medal in competitions in physics, maths or programming

• 10+ years as an engineer • Minimum GPA 3.5/4 (US), 60% (UK), 8/10 in any other country

"So we know you've been out of school for 10 years, but can you send us a copy of your report cards?"

Well I had "we know you've been out of school over 20 years, but we really need to know which exam boards you did your age-16 English literature exam with before we'll interview you for this science degree requiring position ... that we previously employed you for".

Thankfully I quite enjoy hunting down lost information but I was not impressed with the HR personnel in that one.

The more disconnected the hiring process gets from the people who will actually be working with the hire, the more farcical it becomes.

HR Creating work for themselves to Justify their existence.

So far what has worked for me in Germany when I got these forms from HR is to put "(by request)" into such fields. Which is, erhm, kind of cheating because, well, they are requesting it right there in the form. But so far, funnily enough, nobody actually bothered. All they cared about was that the form was "completed".

AKA I'll happily bother with that if you're paying me, otherwise no.

> 60% (UK)

60% of what? I have a Cambridge degree with no percentage on it (II/1), and some A-level results with letters.

2:1 is 60-70%

A lot of universitites translate the overall exam percentage achieved to a 1:1, 2:1, 2:2, etc. For instance, achieving an average of 70% or more is considered a 1:1 in a lot of universities. I think it depends on the course too. I don't know if it's standardised.

It was 75% on the course I did for a First - they used to go years without giving any (this was the 1980s).

We had no idea what we got in the end of year exams - just a nice chat with someone who told you "Well done, on course for a 1st" etc.

That job spec is hilarious: > Worked at a large tech company worth more than US$15B

And asking about your GPA? With 10+ years experience? For a head of engineering?

GPA is so irrelevant after like 2 years. I know high GPA individuals that didn’t do much, I know low GPA individuals that are in very high level positions, it’s a terrible indicator. People change, and work is different than academia.

Gallant spent his time in college studying and regurgitating what his professors told him. Graduated with a high GPA.

Goofus spent college practicing his social engineering skills to acquire access to free beer and attentions of young ladies.

After 10 years Gallant is a Sr developer with no reports and Gooffus is the VP of engineering.

Important to note that having a medal was just one of several options. Other options included working at a large tech company, or having a STEM degree from one of 15 universities in the US/top 5 in the UK. It is an "or", not an "and", the requirements seem strange but not unrealistic.

the requirements seem strange "and" like they were written by a psychopath.

• Don’t panic about cooking: get free dinners with Deliveroo • Start the day properly with fresh fruit and cereals

So basically we expect you to be on site before breakfast and stay until after dinner

Or rather "we give you the option to work flexibly and be present either mornings or evenings and still get benefits". My employer provides breakfast and dinner in the office, and I don't think I actually know anyone who is present for both (but there is a 60-40 split on breakfast/dinner). I'm sure it happens, but interpreting it as a requirement is just bad faith.

I don't think it's in bad faith. If an employer offers on-site cafeterias, catered food, nap pods, free massages, game rooms or other stereotypical tech company perks, they may simply be trying to improve employee happiness because it helps with recruiting and retention. Or it may be to get employees to subconsciously accept a lower salary because it's such a "cool" place to work. Or it may be symptomatic of a work culture that blurs the distinction between work time and personal time by bringing your recreational activities into the workplace.

Anecdotally, I've personally had employers try to use these perks to extract unpaid overtime from me, and I know lots of people in the tech industry who regard them as a red flag. Not something to immediately write off a company for, but something to carefully examine before accepting a job offer.

When I used to work in an office on a typical 5 day week pattern I wouldn't be in the office for breakfast or for dinner

If there's a culture of people being on site working longer hours than 9-5 then thats something that will affect your job.

Comparatively, my costs have gone up now that I'm WFH instead of going into the office, because I have to feed myself.

I used to arrive at the office for 7am, have a delicious breakfast, a delicious lunch, and take a doggy bag to go for dinner when I left at 4pm.

While that can sound terrible on the one hand, on the other hand, the cognitive load of having to make sure I have food for breakfast and/or dinner was wearing me down. Stocking a kitchen and cooking for one is no fun.

Work took all of that away, and all it cost me was spending an extra hour a day in the office. That saves me having to go to supermarkets to buy food, saves me having to cook, saves me having to clean, and means I can sit at a table and dine comfortably instead of doing takeaway and eating/drinking on the go.

You might argue I've been brainwashed. All I know is that it's been months since I last got fed at work, and as great as the choices on Deliveroo are, after 3 months of this garbage, I miss having real freshly cooked food prepared for me.

Use this WFH time to learn to cook easy meals.

Check out Anna Jones videos on youtube, like this one

One-Pan Genovese-Style Pasta Recipe | Food Honestly | The Pool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GjEXxkph-c

This is actually hilarious to read. Part of me thinks that this is all part of a sick joke/experiment to see how willing are people to apply.

If my perspective employer showed me a requirement list like that, I would honestly just show them the finger and make fun of them.

In all fairness to Revolut they did take it down to update.

It was picked apart by a recruiter on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/StevieBuckley/status/1262718368949374976

> STEM (technical) degree from top 15 unis in the US

Don’t bother applying if you went to Cornell, Rice, UCLA, Berkeley, Georgetown, CMU, Georgia Tech, UWA, etc.

What measure are you using for top universities? Looking at US News' top engineering schools, Cornell, UCLA, Berkeley, CMU and Georgia Tech are all in the top 15.

I was going by top national universities. You think they’re smart enough to go by top engineering schools?

Revolut founders are from CIS countries (Russia and Ukraine). It quite common for high-school graduates from post-Soviet countries to participate in STEM Olympics as the medal can open the doors to best tech schools without entrance exam.

It not so hard as it sounds. I get the two medals on Physics when I was in school, so did plenty of my classmates.

I guess by that time they were targeting mainly CIS developers as they have and R&D in Moscow.

>I guess by that time they were targeting mainly CIS developers as they have and R&D in Moscow.

That job was posted last month...

Haven't notice that. Thanks

It's in a set of a couple of other requirements, which they only want one of, and one of the others is "STEM degree from a top 15 school."

The irony is this is exactly how the hiring criteria at some big tech companies looks. They either take people from top schools or people with otherwise impressive accomplishments. Though the rest aren't nearly as transparent about it.

That kind of a specific requirement is generally a sign that the candidate has already been chosen.

I also had bad experiences with Revolut including a completely unresponsive customer support.

More importantly, what alternatives are available? Ideally:

- has an API

- reasonably priced or free

- works in EU

Monzo is better in nearly all ways, except slightly worse exchange rates.

Had nothing but good experiences with Monzo, though admittedly I only use it as a day to day spending account.

All ways? They appear to have _literally_ no way to use any of their services except through a phone "app". No thank you. I don't want a toy bank.

The GP is asking for an alternative to Revolut, which is also an app-based bank. You might be in the wrong thread.

They also have an API, which is what the GP was asking for.

It's only available in the UK, not in the EU.

I've been using Transferwise for quite a while, never had any issues with them. The transfers are quick, fees are low, exchange rates are fair.

TransferWise is lovely, but it is not legally a bank.

Bunq.

If their service is anything like their recruitment process, I would stay away.

For day to day usage you need at least a Premium account which is 8 Euro a month. I loved the user experience for doing iDEAL payments but that's all I used it for so I stopped my subscription.

8 Euro a month is far from reasonable.

Depends on what you want to use it for. Transferwise's borderless account and multi currency debit card has served me well for years.

It's worth noting though that they are not a bank. They are a money transfer service and as such not covered by any deposit insurance scheme.

Also, some institutions like stock brokers do not accept payments from Transferwise.

Monzo has also been working well for me, but I only opened the account a couple of months ago. Unfortunately they don't have a web interface, which makes it a bit more fiddly to use than I would like. And they are UK only.

www.bunq.com

This is pretty standard banking behaviour if they suspected you of money laundering, and closed your account on that basis.

To be clear, I have no idea if you were money laundering, and have no idea if your account usage had indications of money laundering (valid or otherwise). I can just tell you from personal experience that’s what a banks response to suspected money laundering is.

Maybe this would be the case if they froze the account instead of blocking the user and sending money to random people.

You wouldn't send money back to criminals. This isn't normal behaviour.

If a bank thinks money laundering has occurred, and the police don't request to seize the funds, then normal behaviour is to return the money to source, or even to the customer they suspect of money laundering.

Banks don't have any actual power to seize funds, only the police do that, and it occurs extremely rarely. (I've seen thousands of reports sent to police every month for years, and I've only seen police seize funds a handful of times)

"Random people" sending you money over a period of time will trigger all kinds of AML/KYC alerts

I remember a news article that showed up on HN, when people were all over how Revolut was allegedly lax with their AML controls, according to some news, etc

And then they never think they behaviour is going to trigger the checks and that it's ok to have random people sending them money without any justification.

What happens when random people owe you money (split bills, taxis, etc.)? How is it better for AML/KYC if they have to repay in cash instead of by bank transfer?

Small, one-off payments usually shouldn't trigger those alerts

I couldn’t even register for a business bank account so left a review on Trustpilot. They tried to have it removed as bring fake. Luckily Trustpilot accepted my evidence and reinstated it.

“Primarily, it starts with their CEO Nikolay [Storonsky] being very vocal about their mentality, that if you do a 9-5 [workday] it won't work out...everything he has said is a recipe for burnout” says Stevie Buckley, co-founder of Honest Work and HR advisor to dozens of startups.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/3/18248826/revolut-workplace...

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-...

Never trust a founder who claims that extraordinary work effort is the key; they stand to reap the rewards while the costs accumulate downwards. You have to have significant equity (not options) before the risk/reward works out in your favor.

probably 9to5 state of mind employees not a good fit for a growing startup. Not trying to defend burnout culture rather than job-to-be-done approach.

Everything that comes out of Revolut internally sounds horrific. I applied and was offered an interview, upon further research into how they work I pulled out of the process immediately.

They push their employees to breaking point (and with this, seemingly beyond). I'm so glad I didn't pursue that avenue, and feel so sorry for those caught up in this.

Their have been various articles from credible sources over the last year or two making it clear that they are a really shitty company. You would be crazy to trust them with either your money or your career.

I've heard anecdotally that they promised a certain level to a new starter and then upon starting he'd been down-levelled. This was second hand information, so I can't verify, but I have also heard bad things about them.

Here is one reference: "But former Revolut employees say this high-speed growth has come at a high human cost – with unpaid work, unachievable targets, and high-staff turnover." https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-...

Their CEO sounds like scumbag of the first order.

It sounds like these people were pressured into making a decision under tense circumstances (QUIT IN THE NEXT 30 MINUTES OR YOU GET NOTHING).

In the US this could probably qualify for nullification as it was made under duress. Don't know anything about Poland.

In the US it probably constitutes criminal fraud, as it's a transparent attempt to evade unemployment benefits. Again, though, Poland and the EU may be different.

It's definitely illegal if the employee was a EU citizen, but I'm not sure whether that's also the case if the employee isn't.

Are there EU-wide labor protection laws?

Duress is a high bar and I don’t think it would apply here.

Being cornered in a closed office by two employees, handing you a legal paper and ordering you to sign it immediately, is not duress?

> “I thought maybe I should speak to another institution for legal advice because I am a foreigner,” Elena says. “[But] they said I had no additional time and that I have 30 minutes to make this decision.”

Really nasty tactics. Impossible to understand the consequences of what you're signing in that short of a time.

Correction: Really illegal tactics.

They also successfully pressured over 60% of their staff into exchanging salary for twice the value in options.

I've worked for dysfunctional companies, but I guess I'm lucky I haven't run into management trying to steal from me.

Any time a company asks you to forgo cash compensation for stock you should start preparing an exit strategy: this is doubly true if the stock isn't liquid.

I once worked at a unicorn that a week before bonuses were due to be paid changed them from cash to immediately vesting RSUs. Six months later they were filing for Chapter 11.

Get this: before announcing the salary trade-off option, they already gave negative feedback to people in positions they were looking to cut. Then they announced the salary exchange option as an opt-in for the entire company, saying that if people trade at least 30% of salary across the board they wouldn't lay anyone off. You could opt to trade anywhere from 1% to your entire salary for 2x pre-Covid stock valuation. People who were concerned about getting laid off traded more as a result. Some of them were laid off anyways after working for reduced salary.

it is just sad to see the same tactics(people being bullied into "mutual agreement") used now as in 90s in Eastern Europe.

that is good enough reason to not use their product at all.

I am sure there is plenty of capable competitors.

I've seen the same tactics used in Germany as well.

Basically the HR rep and their line manager call them in a meeting room and play good cop - bad cop so they end up just signing whatever the good cop says is "best" for them.

That's why lots of companies here love hiring young expats sine they're easy to abuse like this as they're new in the country, don't have anyone to ask for help, don't know the language, don't know the law, don't qualify yet for unemployment and can't afford a lawyer and are emotionally vulnerable so they'll blindly sign whatever HR gives them and focus on finding a new job ASAP instead of fighting them in court.

It's one of the reasons I avoid working in companies that focus on hiring mostly expats.

My boyfriend manages a team at Revolut, and half of them just got laid off despite him fighting to keep them on since shutdown started, when he was prompted to fill out performance reviews. Some of them were hired within the past half year, were on a trial period, and let go the day before the end so they wouldn't receive severance packages. All of them were told it was due to their performance, even though he placed them all at high-performing in his reviews, so that the company can fudge their numbers on covid-related layoffs.

I dont understand how these new startup banks can stay in business. Previously banks could make money on the deposits in check accounts, now with negative rates they can only lose. Even big European banks are slowly dying.

They make all their money on the "value add" services. Things like insurance, loans, cryptocurrencies, fees for a shiny metal card, etc.

Even so, I can't see how they can afford ~1,000 support agents employed with only ~1,000,000 daily customers. I don't want to pay 0.1% of my income to pay for tech support for my bank account!

It's like WeWork. These "fintech" companies are primarily in the business of taking money from giant investors who have too much cash (Softbank, Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund etc.)

These investors love to make oversized bets in WeWork-style startups which are actually just tech-colored lipstick on an old unprofitable industry, because it ticks the boxes on their "disruption" checklists.

Yep! These companies have quite deep pockets but they systematically ruin the opportunities for smaller players to make an organic growth.

Most of the "Uber, but for *" startups get funding with these companies, and I don't even feel bad about using their 60% off codes if 8t provides something I'd pay otherwise anyway. When the promotions stop, I stop using the app too.

You would be amazed at how much money a bank can make on card interchange (the fee they earn on every card transaction you make).

Also most central banks don’t have negative base rates, so some money can still be earned from deposit interest. But COVID has of course slashed that revenue stream.

> You would be amazed at how much money a bank can make on card interchange

Not in Europe. Do you have any links?

> Also most central banks don’t have negative base rates,

OK not negative, just zero Eurozone is 0%, UK is 0.1%, Scandies are zero or 0.05% https://www.global-rates.com/interest-rates/central-banks/ce...

Not that are publicly available. But I do work in large fintech, and know how much revenue we make from interchange and it way more that you expect.

While interchange in the EU is capped, it’s not zero. And interchange earned from customers travelling abroad in countries with very high interchange rates is quite significant.

There are still many ways for banks to make money, and challenger banks are betting on the fact they can do it with less overhead.

Big European banks have started closing down branches and laying off staff, while they were pumping VC money to scale across several countries/continents and acquire a customer base among socio-demographics with high potential (mostly young, tech-savvy, traveling, reasonably good with money). These people eventually grow a bit older and need loans, mortgages, investments...

> There are still many ways for banks to make money

Can you name one?

The sad truth is that it's much easier to make money on people who are less savvy and not good with money. They are less likely to switch, more likely to take a loan or overdraft, and have to pay higher interest rates.

1. Pick some established business idea

2. Make it digital

3. Collect VC money

4. Subsidize service / product with VC money, and expand

5. GOTO 3 until IPO pressure starts mounting

6. Pray to god that you've outspent and outlived your competitors when it's time to go public

I want to close my account but is transferwise any better?

I believe so:

* Transferwise has been profitable for a little while now.

* Their pricing if fairly transparent and they're always upfront when they need to increase some fees. I could be wrong, but it looks like they're trying to stay competitive but not take part in a race to the bottom.

* They haven't been trying to recruit new customers as aggressively as Revolut.

* Their MasterCard is a little bit more lenient with offline transactions, which can sometimes be a problem with Revolut.

* On the other hand, the mobile app is a bit bland. It does the job, but the UX isn't as good.

I just had my TransferWise account closed during a transfer to pay rent while overseas. They are holding some of my money, with no perspective of returning it. They say they can't disclose the reasons, leaving you helpless.

I'd advise to be cautions with transferwise as well.

https://transferwise.com/help/24/technical-issues/2961844/wh...

I had the same experience, I tried to make a transfer of $100 or so and they just closed my account with no explanation, and I've never been able to open another one since. They did refund everything, though.

If there's a suspicion of money laundering, you won't get any information from any financial institution, FWIW.

Yes, if you are not sending money to the third world countries often.

Presumably this is legal in Poland...but the company is from the UK, this is obviously illegal in the UK, and it looks terrible.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

Even worse, they are a bank. Who would trust their money to people who behave this way?

Why on earth would anyone voluntarily quit, particularly as in Portugal you will be eligable for unemployment benefits from having been laid-off, vs quitting and not being eligable for the same. Call their bluff. (I live in Portugal, and some foolish bosses tried the same and were rebuffed. FWIW the gov't agreed to pay 60% of the workers benefits during the lockdown in an effort to stem layoffs and furloughs etc.)

Is there a difference in Portugal between being laid off (for economic reasons) and being fired (for underperforming or misconduct)? I got the impression, perhaps mistaken, that the choice for some of the workers referenced in the article was get fired or take this meager deal.

They could be using the old HR blackmail trick from the book where if you agree to leave they promise to give you an awesome letter of recommendation whereas if you let them fire you for underperforming reasons they'll give you a iffy sounding letter of recommendation.

Don't know for Portugal, but in Belgium "underperforming" is also an economic reason, you get the social security protection. Misconduct on the other hand gets you suspended from govt protection for some times.

In Portugal being laid off means (aproximately) getting 2 thirds of your sallary (one third payed by state and one third payed by the employer) and hope to get back to work. Being fired means getting 80%(?) of your sallary and possibly a severance IF you have worked continuosly for at least 6 months AND have a dependent work contract (or equivalent). If you quit you get nothing.

You are confusing a layoff and a furlough. It's not your fault though, the Portuguese government decided to call a furlough a layoff for who knows what reason.

Unless you do something so horrible that it is talked in the news/wide industry, rarely any company will contact your previous employers. They may ask 'so, why did you leave company X?' but in 20 or so years, I never had a company in Portugal ask for an actual reference. (I had in the UK, US and Switzerland though)

While I am not sure, I think legally here is a very grey area as employment information is protected, but I'm not 100% sure.

Because they were threatened with their career potentially being ruined with a bad reference?

I never understood this. There's nothing preventing a previous employer from giving someone a bad reference if they were to voluntarily leave either.

Sure, but if a company fires people for cause, its future references might well state that (even more so if its just terminated several people 'for cause' to save severance money and is having to create the appearance of actual performance reviews to try to make its breach of employment law less obvious). If staff 'voluntarily' leave and save the company severance money, there's no incentive for them to make any claims about termination due to underperformance or say anything else unpleasant. In theory, they might even deliver on promises of 'really nice letters of recommendation' to avoid disgruntled ex-employees talking to employment lawyers.

On the other hand, many jurisdictions have laws which make it pretty difficult to fire people for cause without clear evidence of misconduct or performance improvement plans and probationary periods for underperformance, so there's a good chance the termination threat is just a bluff to see who will resign...

Is that common? In the US old job never give references either good or bad. Just state dates of employment. I guess they just don’t want to deal with the can of worms of dealing with former employees disagreeing with whatever they say and possibly going to litigation.

Do people follow references much?

I don't think anyone has ever contacted my previous employers, despite me having supplied their contact details as a reference numerous times over the years.

Companies are discouraged from saying anything more than the facts of employment ("We can confirm that Bob was employed as a software developer between these dates...") these days, so there's not much value in the new employer bothering as far as I understand.

I've had previous employers contacted more than once, but it was always by a third party background check agency. I doubt "we fired him for cause" would have mattered.

At this point in the US most companies will refuse to say anything about you other than confirming that you worked there and what your title was. To do anything more is a potential litigation minefield.

Laws are getting tighter too. It’s now illegal in many parts of the US to ask you how much you made in your previous job when that used to be a fairly common question.

> Laws are getting tighter too. It’s now illegal in many parts of the US to ask you how much you made in your previous job when that used to be a fairly common question.

Sadly, many companies report your salary to the credit reporting agencies (or a tangential agency).

Employment lawyers would salivate at a case like this

In German speaking countries this is a thing. It's bizarre, but there's a kind of unofficial meaning given to certain phrases in the reference letter.

Not sure anyone with a brain actually cares about it, but they do ask about it if you apply for a job.

I don't think this is the case, but in some cases getting a severance package might be a good option: you get the money and can look for another job, while if you're on unemployment benefits you lose those as soon as you get hired again.

The one time in my life I was laid off, I was given a choice of submitting a letter of resignation, or of being laid off for economic reasons (so no underhanded threats of "underperformance").

The way this was presented to me was that to some employers, being laid off for any reason was considered a bit of a stigma, so by resigning, I could truthfully state (and the company would confirm) that I had left of my own accord.

Not 100% sure what consequence this would have had on potential unemployment insurance claims, because I was about to emigrate anyway and not interested in looking for other work. So I chose to resign.

By the way, anyone knows a competitor to Revolut that respect privacy (online banking, able to send/receive other currencies easily). I would love to switch but it is hard to find anyone actually better from a privacy point of view.

N26 could be interesting

Transferwise - they also have a borderless Mastercard.

I use them to bring proceeds of RSU's back to the UK (0.6% commission on mid-market rate).

To mention my experience, for some reason whenever I try to open an account with them, they lock it without telling me why. They've put me on some sort of blacklist without any explanation, and all I ever tried to do with them is send $100 from one of my accounts to another.

I must have transferred multiple 10K s for various reasons and didn't have any problem with them.

Monzo is amazing in UK, but they don't support larger EU :(

The legs are falling off the unicorn... which one will be the next WeWork.

It's a well-known fact the Revolut CEO is a spoiled baby and a douche. I blacklisted their company long ago due to this.

Winter is coming...

The companies behavior was indeed poor, but I wonder how many people realize that laws that make it hard to reduce your workforce lead to this bad behavior.

Business needs change all the time, and being able to adjust your workforce in response is critical. Not being able to do that can be very costly for both the business owners and employees in the long run, or even the short run if the business has revenue or cash-flow problems.

Sounds like all they had to do was give people proper departure operations, and although they would have not saved as much expense, they would have avoided looking like amoral jerks and maybe even avoided a bunch of labor lawsuits in various places.

Just treat people decently, and you don't have to be painted as callous bastards.

Maybe companies which build their business on a high employee turnover and are incapable of any long-term planning shouldn't exist in the first place?

Alternatively, companies need to accept that being able to adjust your workforce is costly and account for that. This is not something new for them. Revolut knew damn well what the labor laws looked like when they opened their Poland offices.

Following laws and regulations is part of the cost of doing business. There's no need to make excuses for companies that fail at doing this.

If the bad behavior is skirting the labor reduction laws, we should get rid of the labor reduction laws to reduce bad behavior?

This argument doesn't make sense to me.

You see, you cannot skirt a law if there is no such law.

I think people who crave stability should purchase it with their own money (for example, by saving or buying some sort of employment insurance). Forcing businesses to fulfill their fantasies is a terrible idea both morally and economically. Even if you think everyone needs a big institutional daddy to care for them, simply paying unemployment benefits would likely work a lot better than penalizing the employers for adapting to changing conditions (effectively incentivizing them to keep unproductive employees).

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