HR managers weigh in on Elon Musk’s Twitter mass layoff by email

On Friday, Twitter unceremoniously laid off 3,700 staffers—some 50% of its workforce. The harried and disorganized dismissal got here lower than per week after the social media big’s new CEO—er, Chief Twit—billionaire Elon Musk took the helm. 

Former Twitter workers and customers of the platform decried the ruthless layoffs, which Twitter’s HR crew denied would happen.

On Friday, Scott Wiener, state senator in Twitter’s headquarters of San Francisco known as Musk’s “mass-fire” deeply regarding. “Whereas firms periodically interact in layoffs to acknowledge financial realities, firing a full half of workers goes nicely past that.”

For the reason that layoffs have been introduced, HR leaders on Twitter have echoed Wiener’s sentiment. 

“I’ve labored in HR for over a decade and seen many alternative sizes and varieties of firms deal with layoffs,” one user wrote on Friday. “From the place I’m sitting, Musk’s Twitter goes about theirs terribly – legally, ethically, and humanely talking. Infuriating and heartbreaking.”

“I hear that @elonmusk goes to be blaming HR at @Twitter for his bullshit layoffs final Friday,” another user mentioned Monday. “As somebody who has labored in HR for the final 9 years, I can guarantee you that we simply perform orders.” 

Katie Calabrese, senior human sources supervisor at Safety Danger Advisors, a cybersecurity agency in Philadelphia, tweeted that she couldn’t cease interested by the layoffs. 

“Placing apart the potential authorized points, quite a lot of poor HR habits will get chalked as much as ‘while you do XYZ at scale, it’s a must to reduce corners.’ I simply don’t purchase it. There’s at all times a extra compassionate, extra ethical various,” Calabrese mentioned. “When leaders are this craven, it’s as a result of they’re prioritizing their very own consolation above others’ or they’re opting to not put in exhausting, time-consuming work, or each. It’s weak, it’s pathetic, and it’s merciless.”

Take a human-first strategy

Most HR leaders confused the significance of humanity and empathy when delivering workers dangerous information.

The laid-off staff, together with an eight months-pregnant lady, “positively deserve extra dignity than this,” Idris Arshad, Individuals & Inclusion associate at St. Christopher’s, a palliative care charity in London, tweeted. “Certainly there wasn’t such an urgency to do that so brutally and rapidly. Hopefully they get some deserved compensation by way of the courts.” 

“Tough selections must be made on occasion. Fast selections too,” Gemma Dale, founding father of HR agency The Work Consultancy, tweeted. “However there ought to at all times be room for humanity within the course of.” 

As extensively publicized layoffs sweep the tech trade, an moral strategy has by no means been extra very important. Till the Nineteen Seventies, mass layoffs have been seen as “an indication of company failure and a violation of acceptable enterprise habits,” Louis Uchitelle wrote in his guide, “The Disposable American,” in line with a 2021 Quartz article on the historical past of mass layoffs. 

Whereas mass layoffs are extra frequent these days, what hasn’t modified is employee response. Those that survive the cuts typically by no means regain their loyalty to an organization if these cuts are finished callously. A 2018 Harvard Enterprise Evaluate article discovered that downsizing a workforce by simply 1% results in a 31% improve in voluntary turnover the next yr. 

Earlier than Twitter’s layoffs occurred, the app’s CEO, CFO, chief advertising and marketing officer, chief buyer officer, head of product, head of individuals and variety, and quite a few different senior leaders had departed. Sadly for Musk, he hasn’t bought many extra individuals to lose.

Working example: he’s already requested dozens of staff he laid off to—please—think about coming again.

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