About those Layoff Letters.
By now, everyone has seen and read the blog post by Airbnb. The overall consensus is that it is a heart-melting note by a CEO on announcing layoffs.
Context is important : The US is a country where wrongful termination is a cause for a lawsuit. It is imperative therefore for any org to justify its termination - especially where there are mass layoffs, as it gives way for unions to be formed and a class action suit to be filed.
Behind such notes, you must remember that there is not just a CEO typing away his thoughts, but a team of lawyers, the board, the PR firm, the publicists all iterating on the final copy that finally goes public.
I am not saying it is all vanity, but that is a well edited piece of document that has gone through the effort of eliciting the feedback that is getting - one of praise and empathy.
AirBNB is also a very well handled brand. And true to its brand image of "caring" whoever is the brand custodian, is ensuring that in a time of crisis, the brand still rings true.
Im bringing this up, because these are all professionals who are considered as a waste of money in an ecosystem like India. When an Indian CEO puts out a blog, its usually a CEO at 3am, typing away a post and publishing it. It is raw. It is only in a time of crisis that everyone looks for a PR firm to "handle the messaging carefully" but when you are crunched for money, that seems like unnecessary costs.
So remember the context from where these messages are coming from. It is important to keep this in mind, as over the next few weeks layoffs will be announced from Indian counterparts and they might not measure up to the "heartfelt and thoughtful" messaging of the likes of Airbnb. But the one thing you can count on, is in India if it says that the Startup CEO wrote that note, it probably is true and is heartfelt indeed.
[1] https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-brian-chesky/
[2] https://medium.com/@henrysward/cartas-covid-19-layoff-cbb80e3e8a5d?
Here are two layoff announcements - [2] by Carta which made an announcement on Apr 15th and [1] is by AirBnB on May 5th. Do you notice the template?
Transformative Business Leader
4 年That’s a letter for a masterclass in comms.
Operations and Innovation with Analytics-Automation-AI. Director@HPE
4 年Good points; additional liked Carta CEO explicitly mentioning he is responsible not the manager..
Creator in pursuit of a better world | Serial entrepreneur | Out-of-the-box thinker | Building a healthcare SaaS for Geriatric Care | Sounding board for diverse C-suite executives.
4 年It's important to allow a business to downscale mapping with market conditions. Thankfully governments in #India also have realising it; the states of UP & MP have emerged to be the torchbearers. #Corona is bringing in new perspectives to the world in many ways.
Manager at EY | Business Consulting | Finance Transformation
4 年The heartfelt PR note was accompanied by a very good severance package too.
Happily building "HAPPIEST HEALTH"
4 年Vijay Anand Sir, I remember reading many lay off messages but truly this one is heartening. Pouring their heart out. Thank You for sharing this post. I hope people around take a cue from this.