Interesting. I also recall that it was nearly impossible in France to lay people off like this, so the company had to be careful when hiring and not hire someone into a job they didn’t need.
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My understanding is that being “laid off” makes it much easier (possible?) to file for unemployment vs. being fired with cause. This CEO is obviously a psychopath with zero leadership acumen, but that may be part of the reason why this was positioned as such. Layoffs generally avoid responsibility and lawsuits around proving cause as well though, so “win-win” I suppose.
A good time to remember that “leadership” is just another skill, and another kind of labor. It’s not more necessary, better nor more valuable. It may take fewer people, but that doesn’t make them “special” and shouldn’t make them harder to pin poor performance on an get rid of.
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That’s called a bbooiinngg.
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Not illegal
but this will not stop people thinking about and maybe filling a lawsuit,
also the severance agreement will likely have a clause that the employee gives up the right to sue, or when said employees where hired had to sign a mediation agreement
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Once upon a time, I worked for a small struggling organization and in the 5 years I was there every December there was a round of layoffs - layoffs that could have easily waited until after the holidays. Their “reasoning” was that they didn’t want people going deeply into debt for the holidays, only to lose their source of income right after the holidays were over.
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Instead they went into debt for the holidays and lost their source of income right before the holidays?
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Now that I think about it they may get in trouble RE the Warn act
They are supposed to give 60 days notice of a mass layoff
It depends on the severance agreements though, they could pay them for 60 days
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There are many large corporations that do the same thing, but the timing is for accounting purposes. If their fiscal is the same as the calendar year and it looks like the numbers won’t look good on the annual report, they cut employee expenses. IMO there should be penalties for that, since that seems to be the only way to stop this form of manipulation for the shareholder’s report or management’s performance goals.
One of my contractor jobs was with a Fortune 500 company that furloughed most of the folks in the IT department one December. They posted their positions for applications in February. I started my assignment a few months after that, and when one of those employees told me the story I was amazed to learn about 80% of them came back. This was a time when there was no problem getting a job, so I was shocked that anyone treated that way would go back. They’d only have to pull that crap on me once and not only would I never work there again, I’d still be talking about it to anyone who asked me…and that was almost 20 years ago.
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Or “professional management” as I call it.
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Fire the C suite and replace them with a computer program. It can’t be much worse.
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As a past HR zombie, I can assure you that “at-will” does close to nothing in California. Nearly every wrongful termination case I saw was settled prior to trial as it would have cost the company far more to defend. Even if the company did everything correctly.
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Because of the timing (just AFTER they raised a pile o’ money) I have a sneaking suspicion that hiring them in the first place might have been an attempt to make it look to investors that this was a “growth” company. Because in the current late stage capitalism companies are primarily about raising money, and being able to profitably produce goods and services is a low priority.
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I want to get off Uncle Pennybags’ Wild Ride.
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I was part of a team that knew the axe was coming, just a matter of when. Then the email came out from the VP, from some similar, but different, email address, and we all knew it. The mail said to report to the conference room called A View to a Kill (no lie) and that’s where the axe fell. For most of us, it was a relief because we were acquired by a bigger, but dumber, company back east. Oh, and it happened in early December.
For the next few years, I got to say how much they sucked, letting us go just before the holildays and I had a new baby at home. But honestly, I was glad to have waited it out and got the decent severnce package, so I could spend the next seven months at home bonding with my new baby girl.
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TWO HOURS A DAY? Man, those are some productive folk.
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I know right? Usually I just stare at my desk but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I’d say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
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I have had to fire a couple of people and it really sucked. I have also been fired and laid off at a couple of jobs and that also sucked.
There are cases where someone is objectively awful at their work or at working with others. Those are always individual cases and should be resolved as such.
Mass firings are another degree of awful. My sister recently went through this. As a manager she was forced to let go about 40% of her staff, which was an excruciating process that took a couple of months. When it was done she got the chop in the next wave. It’s horrible for all concerned.
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Probably illegal, since it’s documented that the CEO claimed on the call that it is for cause but is being positioned as a layoff.
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another in the same vein:
good on the remaining devs for putting up a fight about it.
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I believe laziness and stealing are not grounds for a layoff
It’s never either of those things.
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