Better.com CEO's Ruthless Remote Lay-Offs

In early December 2021, CEO of Better.com Vishal Garg fired 9% of his employees (900 people) via a Zoom call. This news comes right at the start of the holiday season. Those on the call were terminated “effective immediately.” On the call, Garg claimed he wasn’t looking forward to doing this and explained his emotions regarding the decision. It was later communicated that the Zoom call remained short. Garg pointed to market efficiency, performance, and productivity as the reason behind the firings. Fortune later reported Garg had accused the terminated employees of stealing from the company due to their unproductivity. The company received $750 million the week of the termination after going public in May 2021. Before this incident, Garg sent an aggressive email to employees mentioning they were “too slow” and “embarrassing him." One of Garg’s go-to guys who received above-average perks and benefits was later placed on administrative leave for bullying.

Initially, Better.com CEO Vishal Garg hoped to justify and explain the virtual and abrupt lay-off of almost 10% of the company's employees. Garg did a poor job addressing this incident sincerely and appropriately and as a result, had to shift his organizational objective to apologizing for the unprofessional and inappropriate incident and his subpar responses following it. Vishal Garg and Better.com as a whole had to prove the company’s culture and work environment isn’t reflected by the termination incident in December 2021, and other messages/incidents that surfaced following public backlash, and that rather Better.com has an uplifting, fair, and supportive working environment. Garg wanted to ensure Better.com is a company that consumers like and support and in turn use/pay for.

Better.com is an American company that provides direct loans for online mortgage financing. Better.com targets a range of ages, but it's unlikely any individual under the age of 18 will need this service as it relates to buying homes/properties. It’s likely almost all of Better.com employees on the December 2021 Zoom call fall into Better.com’s target audience: employed, young adults/adults, technologically savvy, and have some sort of desire to learn more about financing and mortgaging a home. Garg was not only addressing Better.com’s former and current employees to reinforce employee treatment as a top priority, but also the general public as Garg and Better.com were scrutinized for the impersonal and unthoughtful timing of the termination in addition to the nature of how the termination was carried out.

The importance of timing is crucial as it shows a company/organization took into account the effects of the message they intend on delivering. Both the Better.com case and the Jewish Museum case suffered backlash for their lack of consideration of the timing of certain crucial decisions, which ended up having harmful effects on others and the company/organization.

In the Better.com case, Garg was criticized for the inconvenient timing of the termination, as well as the termination process itself. December is a hard financial month for many due to the festivities and traditions that come along with the holiday season. Terminated employees, their families and friends, and the general public criticized Garg for not taking into account the effect termination may have on employees, especially during the holidays which are seen by many as a joyous and giving-back season.

In the Jewish Museum case, the museum received early backlash due to the organizations’ lack of consideration regarding the timing of the release of the exhibition catalog without the exhibition’s educational materials and before the exhibition opening. Due to the nature of the exhibition, it’s likely the exhibit, museum, and artists would’ve received less backlash and doubt regarding the exhibition if the catalog was complimented with educational materials that help individuals understand the intentions and stories behind the exhibition.

While both these cases did a poor job of considering the timing of certain messages, the idea of timing is seen differently in each case. In terms of Better.com, the day and month itself were poor timing due to the holiday season, but for the Jewish Museum case “poor timing” reflects the organization's disregard for the need for the accompanying educational materials with the release of the exhibition catalog. Ultimately, it was Garg or other Better.com top executives’ responsibility to realize the flawed timing of the termination as it was the museum’s responsibility to ensure a controversial and serious exhibition is accompanied by educational materials that explain the exhibition’s goals, meanings, and intentions.

Intentional timing not only reflects the mindfulness of the company/organization, but it also typically promotes better public response and acceptance of said message/event/campaign.

This case is very interesting to me because of the controversy surrounding an important aspect of the case: Garg’s decision to terminate 9% of employees via Zoom. While this was just one piece into the puzzle that created a distaste for Garg and Better.com, it is very relevant to current times. The advancement of technology has allowed for traditional workroom patterns and events to transition into remote versions which have typically been seen as more efficient and accessible. But, the role COVID-19 has had on the world since the start of 2020 has forced many to overly rely on technology and remote options for typical work obligations. Some argue that COVID-19 times were unprecedented and Garg was handling the termination in a safe manner, but ultimately past incidents including Garg and his tendency for mistreating employees, on top of the timing and process of the Dec. 2021 termination, makes Garg’s decision inexcusable.