Job Cuts at Chargebee
Chargebee let go of 10% of their staff on Wednesday. You can read more in this TechCrunch article
I've been at Chargebee for 4+ years now. I joined in 2008 when we were 250+ folks. We have grown exponentially and currently have over 1400 employees. Chargebee is a people-friendly organisation in its truest sense. We have incredible benefits and are one of the best places to work in tech. This restructuring shocked us as we expected Chargebee to take care of the employees irrespective of the circumstances.
The leadership team did everything they could to avoid the layoffs. However, the lack of visibility into the market and the increasing gap between revenue and spending compelled CB to make this unfortunate move.
I've been reading about layoffs for a while and have never experienced or seen it in an organisation where I've worked. The most common complaint I see from outsiders is how inhumane the layoff experience tends to be for the impacted folks. The recently leaked video of the Better.com CEO comes to mind.
Chargebee did a reasonably good job in how they handled the Layoffs. Here are a few reasons why I say that:
- CEO did geography-specific calls (three of them) instead of just one call announcing to the entire org.
- The non-impacted employees got an email from HR immediately after the announcement from the CEO. This message decreased the anxiety of folks who were immune.
- The Impacted employees, too, got an email immediately from Sr folks in the team and calendar invites on the same day to discuss the severance package.
- The Severance package includes three months of pay, extended Insurance benefits, outplacement help and extended time to exercise the ESOPs.
- CEO answered 100+ questions on the Slido from the non-impacted employees who understandably were angry, anxious and worried for their affected peers and friends.
- On Thursday CEO also did an AMA where he addressed the most commonly asked questions.
It's essential to do this right. While the layoffs will fundamentally change how employees perceive their employer, how it is handled gives an insight into how an organisation acts in times of distress.
Seeing the community's support for the CEO's LinkedIn post is heartening. Many companies have said they are hiring and would like to help. I also see many Chargebee employees amplifying the message on their LinkedIn.
All this positive development does not take away from the awful experience layoffs can be; it just helps to provide a soft landing. The hope is that it helps transition and to find an opportunity for the impacted employees.
There is a sense of anxiety and fear among the non-impacted employees. It will be there for a while until we can address the concerns thoroughly and return to business as usual.
Since this news, there have been confirmed job cuts at Stripe, Lyft and many other tech organisations. The reason tends to be the same across the board: "We overestimated the growth potential due to the pandemic's push towards digital transformation and are now seeing slowness in the economy that does not justify the spend".
Could this growth splurge have been avoided at these organisations? As an org, you want to place bets that will give you the next big revenue engine, and the thing about bets is that they can fail. The size of these bets varies, and maybe the lesson is to place smaller bets; if they fail, the impact is much lesser.
Building a successful organisation is incredibly difficult. There are thousands of reasons why it can go wrong and only a handful of why it will work out.