How Better got Worse: Employees in India recount their harrowing experience during the second mass-layoff

Better.com CEO Vishal Garg had apologised for his manner of handling layoffs last year. (Image credit: LinkedIn)

At around 8 pm on March 8th, India-based employees of US startup Better saw horror unfold on their screens. Just as LinkedIn was getting flooded with posts of layoffs in US offices, they received an email from CFO Kevin Ryan, confirming a large-scale layoff with details of the severance package.

The package would have 3 months' pay for the Indian office and 2 months' pay for their counterparts in the US. The same mail was sent to the personal emails of the affected employees as well. It also said that those who will be affected will receive calls from the management and that there will be a proper discussion.

“However, it's been a day, and I have not received any word or intimation from the office”, one of the affected employees based in Gurugram told Moneycontrol. He was hired just 3 months ago, in November 2021.

“During all the onboarding sessions, which were extensive and continued for 4 days, the trainers emphatically highlighted how Better had “hired insanely”. Now, everyone who was hired alongside me has been fired”, he said.

The callousness in the way Better deals with employees has stunned and angered many. After laying off 900 employees over a shocking Zoom call by founder Vishal Garg just before Christmas, digital mortgage company Better.com decided to do the honors again, this time by sacking people starting on Women's Day.

Over 4,000 employees, including pregnant women and expectant parents, were being laid off starting Tuesday. Many took to LinkedIn to share their harrowing experience, with one employee stating that her computer just shut down in the middle of work.

Reportedly, an all-hands meeting, of a formal intimation of the dismissal was scheduled for the evening of March 9th.

According to the Indian employee cited above, when he asked the company earlier on why it was still hiring when it just laid off 900 people, he was told this "happens in startups."

“I had around 65 individuals in my team till yesterday, including 3 managers, 3 team leads, and 60 analysts. Today, less than 10 people remain. And even they are not sure whether they will be asked to continue, given that the only indication they have of their employment not being terminated is that their systems have not shut down yet”, he said.

This, after the entire management-from senior members to Human Resource Managers, assured all the employees that there will be no more layoffs.

"Infact, the HR manager who assured me after the December layoffs that there will be no more terminations and firings was also laid off", he continued.

“Till the last moment, i.e. yesterday, there was no official confirmation about the layoffs, there were only rumors floating around. There was a message from a former manager who had left and wrote about this regarding this which created a ruckus, but the management completely denied this”, said another former employee of the company.

“Better’s core, fundamental policies are based on transparency, which is ironic, given that even after constant communications with the senior management, there was a clear-cut, upfront denial on their part. There is a major absence of transparency and communication from senior leadership. This is not what transparency entails”, she said.

“I was working when my laptop abruptly shut down. I panicked and called my colleagues, thinking it was a technical issue. But when I received the mail on my personal email, I knew I had been fired”, she recounted.

Former employees also spoke about how, before these layoffs, the notice period had been significantly reduced by the company. “From 90 days earlier to just 30 days to a single day, the notice period policies kept changing well until the last 3 weeks”, another former employee said.

Blind was aware
Reportedly, rumors that such an unfortunate event would happen had been showing up for around a month on informal communication channels and the community app Blind.

“Post February 20th, many chats, and forwarded messages started flowing in that indicated that mass layoffs were imminent and that this time around, more people would be fired. There were proper timelines that detailed the time and date of these happenings as well. Per these messages, the layoffs for scheduled for 9th March, and that is what happened”, another former employee said. He had been hired by the company in 2020.

“There are still people being hired for the purchase side of work by the company. I know people in my team who were just into their first, second, and third months of work with the company. But for me, this was very predictable, even anticipated. I am not surprised”, said a fourth former employee, who had also joined the company in 2020.

According to a current senior employee at Better, the company kept on hiring based on its growth projections, which seem to have gone awry.

The employee also said that there were no performance-linked parameters that decided who would be fired or retained. “There were no set parameters at all. Was it the production, quality of work, or employee behavior? I dont know what they thought, since there was no list shared”, he further said.

This was corroborated by another ex-employee, whose identity on the business communication platform Slack channel of Better was deactivated at around 1 am. After shutting the systems, activity on the slack channels was a determinant of whether the employee survived in the company.

“The layoff was done with the simple intention of decreasing employee volume. On being asked as to what was the basis of this, the HRs mentioned that this was not performance-based. People who had received tokens of appreciation just a week back were also fired”, the person said.

The senior employee mentioned above cautioned that this may not be the end. Stating that even currently, they are operating at “more than their required strength”, he indicated that the mass layoffs would continue for some time. This, after the mail sent by CFO Kevin Ryan stated that their "strongest days lie ahead".

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York, Better.com offers mortgage and insurance products to homeowners through its online platform. Backed by SoftBank and Novator, it was valued at $4 Billion in 2020.