Internet Start Up Fires 900 Employees Over Zoom Call, Including Entire Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Team
The CEO of mortgage lender Better.com fired 900 “lazy” employees, including the company’s entire diversity, equity, and inclusion team, only weeks before Christmas via a brutal Zoom call on Dec. 1.
On last week’s Internet-based conference call, CEO Vishal Garg started out the call with a harsh message: “This isn’t news that you’re going to want to hear…If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated effective immediately.”
The mass firing ended up trimming about nine percent of the company’s work force in one action.
Garg, 43, said market efficiency, performance, and productivity were to blame for the firings.
Per the Daily Mail:
One angry worker filmed the call and shared it online, complete with a moment where they cursed at the CEO as he confirmed the mass ‘termination’ of employees from the Manhattan-headquartered mortgage provider.
The unidentified male worker could be heard to say “F**k you dude. Are you f**king kidding me?”
Garg, who has been accused of being “erratic” by workers, later doubled-down in a scathing blog post which saw him lay into his staff for “stealing” through laziness.
The father-of-three wrote on professional network Blind: “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. Get educated,” Garg added.
Still, Garg claimed that firing people was hard for him.
“This is the second time in my career I’m doing this and I do not do not want to do this. The last time I did it, I cried. This time, I hope to be stronger. We are laying off about 15% of the company for a number of reasons — the market, efficiency and performances and productivity,” he said on the call.
Not much comfort for those who lost their job just ahead of Christmas, though.
But, hey, at least he fired the useless tools in the diversity, equity, and inclusion team. Their jobs aren’t even real jobs!
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