The responsibility companies have towards people are generally defined in (i) the contract of employment, (ii) company policies, and (iii) legislation within the relevant jurisdiction.
Outside of anything defined in these areas a company doesn't have any responsibility towards the people, including those laid off. It's an incredibly good idea to have that clear in your mind when you accept a job.
Many of us are working for, or help lead, much smaller companies who - because they weren't so spendy - are much less likely to need to invoke large scale layoffs during the current economic turmoil (no matter how careful you are, things can still go sideways though).
Nevertheless, many of our companies have been subject to the disruption of companies like Prisma (and plenty of others: Meta, Google, Shopify, and the rest) hoovering up every developer they could get at inflated salaries just because they had plenty of money to spent and a bit of an anti-competitive streak (and I note that many of the layoffs I've read about so far have mostly included staff outside of engineering and product development, so not much has changed on the latter). This has hurt our businesses, set back projects, caused a lot of stress amongst employees who've remained, and of course cost us a huge amount in rehiring.
I can't blame anyone for accepting a role with a 30 - 50% pay increase elsewhere: everyone is under financial pressure, particularly at the moment, and everyone has aspirations for their future (nothing wrong with that). But it's not all upside, and I do wish people would be more careful in assessing possible outcomes - in particular understand what they're signing up for.
When a market changes as much as it has, as rapidly as it has, over the past 3 years - be that employment or any other market - there is always going to be some sort of regression to the mean, and some element of bullwhip effect.
> I mean metrics for measuring responsibility towards the people, especially the laid-off ones - there seems to be absolutely none of these.
First: The people being laid off are shareholders too. Prisma is offering part of their salary in equity.
Second: How would a responsible lay-off other than this look like?
Severance pay: All departing team members will receive one month of additional pay per year of service, plus the payout of any accrued PTO.
Healthcare benefits:
Prismas health benefits for US employees will remain in place through February.
International contractors who don’t have government funded medical cover available will receive an extra $1,000 severance.
Equity vesting: We are waiving the equity cliff for team members who have been with us for more than 6 months but less than 1 year.
Job search support: For all those who wish to, we will do our best to connect you with the various recruitment groups within our investor community.
Equipment: Keep all of the equipment that has been issued to you during the course of your employment with Prisma.
He is taking responsibility by: 1) probably not making the same mistake in the near future again, and 2) taking money out of the company's bags and giving it to employees.
What is the alternative to this? Should Prisma keep the workers, which became unnecessary for reaching the company's goals?
Yes, it's most likely they over hired like every other tech company. But now are in an environment, where it's difficult to raise additional funds. Obviously, Prisma is now adapting and tries to lower the cash burn rate.
Furthermore, it is worth noting that most tech companies massively hired in 2019, 2020 and 2021. If it now becomes obvious, that they hired too many people, what should they do besides cutting?
Right, but on the other hand there’s no responsibility if there’s no metric. Someone took responsibility on them to have revenue enough to keep people around, someone failed at that. Maybe revenue was enough but there was a decision to cut people anyways - someone who had responsibility to keep people they’ve hired. Someone might’ve hired HR people in order to grow the company, and now they’ve decided they don’t want to so let’s cut HR people.. nothing outside of contract stands between management and a worker if there’s no syndicate. Contract is easily terminated though, with or without penalties - depending. I guess companies aren’t our friends after all?
> Right, but on the other hand there’s no responsibility if there’s no metric.
That's why I call BS on the executive saying "I take full responsibility."
> I guess companies aren’t our friends after all?
They never were and never will be unless they decide to be friends. They may create a pleasing environment to do work in and care for good atmosphere in the workplace and press for decent interpersonal communication so that work gets done smoother, but it's all about the common goal of getting work done so they can get paid so you can get paid. This isn't friendship, it's optimization.
Until your employment contract has an explicit friendship clause of some sort, or unless you own or co-own the company, you have no guarantees you are anything more than a mercenary with some legal protections that kick in if you are let go. That's the very basis of capitalism where workers are one of the many manageable resources.
