
Hootsuite employees describe internal chaos following mass layoffs - WestCoastJustin
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/bjlpem/hootsuite_employees_describe_internal_chaos_and/
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WestCoastJustin
> _On April 29, Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes emailed staff saying layoffs were
> coming and would be completed by end-of-day on April 30. He said the firm
> would give a “full debrief” at a town hall meeting on May 2. “I appreciate
> these next few hours will be stressful,” he wrote._

> _Some employees said they waited at their desks the rest of the day for news
> about who would be affected. The majority of the cuts were in North America
> and Asia, with the Singapore office being closed entirely, according to a
> post from one employee. The company’s European workforce also saw
> reductions. "_

> _“The way this was handled…was insane,” wrote one employee. “You try sitting
> all day with that email hanging over your head and then being let go and
> bundled out the door as if you are a risk to company moral [sic] – as if
> anything could be more demoralizing than seeing valued colleagues get frog
> marched out of the office as they are crying. Absolute shit show.”_

I wonder if there is a management chapter somewhere that walks you through how
to do a mass layoff? Telling everyone to sit at their desks and wait to see
what happens.. seems like a bad option. I guess there are no real good options
here but this seems extremely stressful and rushed.

~~~
microwavecamera
There are definitely better options though. At least warn people and give them
a chance to make plans. Years ago I worked at a startup during the first dot-
com crash. The president and the CEO had a falling out and decided to split up
the company and spin the software development side into it's own biz under the
former CEO. After a few months the upper management decided to lay-off 90% of
the new company's employees without warning. All of whom previously worked at
the parent company, some for several years. The few employees that weren't
laid-off were told to stay home that day and none of the managers or the even
the CEO showed up either. Everyone else came into work with a form letter
waiting on their desks telling them they'd been fired. Nice to see nothing has
changed in the industry over the past 20 years.

