Tech layoffs

Why do tech companies have to be such arseholes?

The company I work for just announced a round of layoffs. 12% of the employees suddenly became former colleagues. And yet the fact that it happened isn't actually the worst part.

It seems mass layoffs are a part of life now. I guess this is what we get for letting the stock market run our lives. "Oh, we have too many people, the market isn't happy, let's make a bunch of them unemployed." Whatever. This is where we are.

That's shitty. But what's really shitty is the way it's done in secret.

I'm in Australia, working for an American company. All of this played out on a US timeline.

  • At 0200 Tuesday AEST (1200 Eastern) everyone got an invitation to an all-hands call with the CEO
  • 0400 AEST (1400 Eastern) The all-hands call, which runs for three minutes, where the CEO announced they're about to fire a bunch of folks
  • 0441 AEST (1441 Eastern) I get an email saying I still have a job

My colleagues in the US were gone by the end of their business day. By the time I woke up it was all over.

In Australia we're a little luckier, in that we actually some employee protections. When a role is made redundant there has to be a "consultation" period, where you're informed about the potential job loss. The company is supposed to explore what options are available in terms of other roles, etc; anything that could mean they can actually keep you employed. There's not a lot of requirement around exactly how long the consultation period lasts, what happens, etc - but it's better than the US.

Here's the fun part: a couple of months ago, the (then new) CEO put a hiring freeze in place. Seemed reasonable enough: I've just come into this company, and just want to get a handle on things so let's put stuff like new hires on hold while I get my head around everything.

Bonus side effect: when they announce redundancies because of a hiring freeze there are no open roles that anyone impacted can move in to. Genius.

So, a bunch of people get sacked with no warning. We don't know who, until we try to contact our colleagues and find their Slack accounts have been deactivated. It's all chaos, no one knows what's going on. It's literally going to take months to get back on track.

AND IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME THING THEY DID THREE YEARS AGO.

It was chaos then, and it is chaos now.

The mega stupid thing? If we accept that the whole mass layoff thing has to happen, and if tech companies could pull their heads out of their arses and not feel they have to do everything in secret, the outcome could actually be much better.

"What? Hundreds of people out of work? How could things be better?"

Let's assume it's going to take three months to get things back to some semblance of normal. Take those three months to actually consult with the employees. Be up-front, and say that the company needs to cut whatever number of roles. Offer decent severance packages to those who decide to take a voluntary redundancy. Support them in the transition out. The people who are left know exactly who is leaving, and can plan accordingly. The chaos is avoided. The ill-will is avoided. All it takes is the exec team to decide to not be cunts.

Yeah, I know. That's never going to happen.