I think the CEOs affect on the call made it worse. It was very strange to hear him say stuff like "last time I had to do this, I cried. I hope to be stronger this time." It felt like his focus when laying off 900 people was too much on how it made him personally feel uncomfortable.
Given the alternatives, the 900-wide bandaid-ripping-off method seems best.
I once worked at an employer who performed five rounds of layoffs in the space of a few months. I cannot recommend that method.
I agree with you, the 900-wide bandaid was the only practical option.
On the other hand, the CEO sounds like an asshole and seems to have been using some kind of intrusive work surveillance technology to blame employees for the layoffs:
> “You guys know that at least 250 of the people terminated were working an average of 2 hours a day while clocking 8 hours+ a day in the payroll system? They were stealing from you and stealing from our customers who pay the bills that pay our bills"
A fine point if true, but how does he know which people were working two hours per day? And who else should be blamed if it was such a widespread practice? The answers to those questions won't reflect well on him.
Which is true: firing people is one of the hardest managerial tasks, but it's tone deaf and disrespectful to make it about the manager's feelings. Shows a lack of maturity.
imo all this "right/wrong way to fire people" is mostly bikeshedding. by far the worst part of being fired is the part where you don't have a job anymore. letting affected employees know as early as possible and paying severance are the only material ways to alleviate that.
One time I was in a meeting during a "series of 1:1s" event, and a colleague opened the door and said "It's all done." and left. We weren't sure for a minute if he meant the whole company was all done, and we should pack up and go home, or if they were done with the layoffs and we weren't getting let go. It could have realistically been either one, but we ended up still having another couple years worth of paychecks.
My first time was at a startup; maybe 80 people. We had an all-hands meeting on a Friday afternoon, and everybody got an envelope on the way out. Some people's envelopes were fatter than the others. Friday afternoon was perfect timing -- most of us ended up at the brewery across the street. Fortunately in 1998 everything in tech in the area was super hot so we all landed on our feet pretty quickly.
I had to look it up, I wasn't even aware affect had a noun definition - I had believed it was only a verb. TIL