This British firm became the second company to fire employees over Zoom call after Better.com
India Today
The British shipping company, P&O Ferries, informed 800 of its employees about the termination of their services via a Zoom call.
Looks like Vishal Garg-led better.com had set an unhealthy trend which is now being followed by other companies too. Months after better.com fired 900 of its employees over the Zoom call, a British firm did the same. The British shipping company, P&O Ferries, informed 800 of its employees about the termination of their services via a Zoom call. The call apparently was way shorter than it should have been. The reports say that the employees were informed about the layoff in about 3 minutes.
On March 17, the shipping company sent a video message to its employees about a “major announcement”. “The company has made the decision that its vessels going forward will be primarily crewed by a third party crew provider. Therefore, I am sorry to inform you that this means your employment is terminated with immediate effect on the grounds of redundancy. Your final day of employment is today,” a company executive was heard saying in the video. Although the official said that the employee would be compensated, the announcement left the employees in a state of shock.
The employees were reportedly fired without any prior intimation, but a company executive has claimed that they were informed by email, post, courier and text message. The company, P&O Ferris, is under loss of £200 million in two years. The company said in a statement that it had no choice but to make the decision to fire over 800 people.
The move was severely criticized by the netizens as well as the politicians of the country. Reacting to the inhuman firing of employees, British MP Karl Turner said," All of that money should be clawed back. Any money that the British taxpayer provided for that business should be taken back from them and the government should be asking the company to get around the table with the unions and negotiate some sort of deal.”
This isn’t the first time that employees were fired over a Zoom call without any prior information. Vishal Garg, the CEO of better.com, was massively trolled and criticised on social media over firing employees over the Zoom call. Garg was then sent a short break but soon returned to his position. His return had triggered mass resignations at Better.com. The senior officials who were unhappy with Garg’s return left the company.
A TechCrunch report had stated that Sarah Pierce, who served as the executive vice president of customer experience, sales, and operations, and Emanuel Santa-Donato, who was working as senior vice president of capital markets and growth, left the company soon after Garg returned to his position. The report says that Pierce was unhappy with the way Garg fired the 900 employees over the Zoom call. She even posted a note on LinkedIn stating her reasons for leaving the company. Following the resignation of Pierce and Emanuel, two other board members, including Raj Date and Dinesh Chopra tendered their resignations recently. The report reveals that employees left in large numbers after Garg made a comeback.
However, the criticisms did not stop better.com from firing more people as the company, in its second phase of layoffs, asked around 4000 employees to leave the company. The layoffs took place on March 9 and most employees came to know about the termination of their services via severance checks.
