Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Since the pandemic began last year, Zoom is often used to carry out activities such as work, school, or just hanging out with friends online. But Better.com CEO Vishal Gard used the platform differently: to fire 900 employees.
“If you receive this call, you are part of the unlucky group to be fired. Your job is terminated immediately,” Vishal Garg said, in the recording seen by CNN Business, quoted Wednesday (12/8/2021).
Vishal Garg added that an e-mail from HRD will soon be received by employees detailing benefits and severance pay. For the reasons for the layoffs, Garg cites efficiency, performance and productivity.
Even according to a Fortune report, he accused employees of ‘stealing’ from their colleagues and consumers that they were unproductive and only worked two hours per day.
“This is the second time in my career I’ve done this and I don’t want to do this. The last time I did it, I cried,” he said, which CNN Business wrote briefly and emotionlessly.
Some of the employees that Vishal Garg fired were on the diversity, equality and inclusion recruitment team.
One employee, Christian Chapman told the story of the dismissal. He was an underwriter for Better.com and had no idea the Zoom meeting was his last call as an employee of an online mortgage company.
He was stunned to hear the announcement of his former boss. Chapman sent a message to Slack’s corporate channel asking what had happened, he immediately lost access to his computer, phone, email and company messages.
Chapman tried to contact his work friends via Facebook Messenger. Communication from the company was finally obtained via his personal email a few hours later.
Several former employees interviewed by CNN Business were also shocked by Garg’s statement and the dismissal. Garg has also previously been involved in controversy when an email he sent was obtained by Forbes in 2020 and called his employees slow and likened them to dolphins. And asked to leave his office.
“I got promoted and then he was out there trying to portray everyone as lazy and stealing ones,” said one former employee.
(npb/roy)
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