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Grindr loses nearly half its staff to strict return-to-work rule
(www.latimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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That's a weird way of saying "grindr found a way to lay off half its staff without having to pay severance"
This should honestly be the top comment, most companies appear to be using RTO as a means of doing mass layoffs without the negative PR hit.
Exactly right - this is a thinly veiled excuse for a planned large scale workforce reduction sidestepping some of the normal repercussions.
What I find most interesting here is that WFH is essentially a benefit (a big one) at this point, and they just eliminated a huge benefit. That usually has the effect of causing some of your greatest talent to walk - and leaving behind those people who either don't care about the benefit (there may be some, but I think this number is small) or don't immediately have the hireability to resign and go for greener pastures.
The tradeoff for grindr is that it'll make them temporarily look better on paper, but the loss of talent will probably hurt them in the long run. If there's one thing that seems to be true of modern capitalism, it's that companies are more than willing to fuck their futures over some perceived short term gains.
Grindr isn't the only company doing this. I'll be interested to see how this works out for all the employers using this same tactic.
Right. This produces the opposite result of what a layoff usually obtains, retaining talented key personnel while cutting the chaff. That's why I'm not sure layoffs were the actual goal.
back to the comments above: the management knows not the people who do the actual work. They can't immediately tell if the Chris who left was carrying his team or was the worst slacker in the company. They'll learn after they audit the remaining workforce and see The Spreadsheet say the people who remained are bottom performers (pun probably intended) but it'll be too late - the talent is gone, the trust is broken. Whether different companies learn from each others' mistakes is a mystery to me, apparently the global conspiracy of billionaire CEOs is not as robust as I expected (/s)
I'm not sure about anyone who was hired before WFH, but generally, a substantial change to job duties or location is considered constructive dismissal. ie, it's legally the same as being fired without cause. That might be eligible for severance and definitely for unemployment.
For most roles, severance is not a guarantee and only given as part of layoffs because companies that don't are crucified.
I.e. getting fired/quitting will not trigger some severance clause for nearly all employees, even constructive dismissal.
This really needs to be some level of labor issue. If an office decided to move across the country and you didn't move with it, would that be you quitting? You applied for the job that was on your side of the country, not the one across the country. To me, the employer's terms changed, which means they need to handle the difference.
I don't think that's entirely the case though. With layoffs you remove the positions that the company no longer needs, or can't sustain. With this strategy they're just randomly losing half the staff. You wouldn't lay off your chief software architect, or the only guy who knows how your database works, or the account manager who will take all of your vendors with them when they leave. This will cause enormous hardship for the company if the wrong people left.
I suppose they could have done a bunch of mandatory surveys first, asking employees how they felt about a return to the office and carefully monitoring the responses from key personnel, even preemptively mandating documentation or hand-off of responsibilities. That's incredibly nefarious though if that's what they did. That might even border on illegal.
You're taking them at their word that all hands are required back. It is zero effort for them to carve out exceptions for key staff -- or literally any group or individual they want to please -- while still bleating about 'come back to the office or be fired' to the press and everyone else. Corporate heads talking out of both sides of their mouth is the norm, not the exception.
If an important position is paid enough, they won't leave just because of this return to office
Yes, they might. The more important they are, the higher the likelihood that they can get high pay and remote work elsewhere, and have plenty of savings on hand to weather the transition.
On the other hand, they may have a good savings buffer built up.