Better.com Is Laying Off 3,000 More Employees After CEO Fired 900 Workers On Zoom

In a move somewhat similar to Microsoft's announcement it was shutting down its Mixer streaming platform through a tweet, the CEO of Better.com, an online mortgage lender, fired 900 employees during a Zoom call back in December. Now the company has announced it will be laying off another 3000 employees, which is about a third of its workforce.

Back in December of last year, CEO and founder of Better.com Vishal Garg, received a large amount of backlash after firing 900 employees during a Zoom call. "If you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off," Garg said while on the call. A recording of the Zoom session quickly began circulating on TikTok and YouTube.

Just about three months later, Interim President Kevin Ryan stated in a letter to employees that was posted on the company's website, "We must make the difficult step of streamlining our operations further and reducing our workforce in both the US and India in a substantial way." The letter was in response to the layoffs being caught by other employees following a payroll mishap.

Some employees learned about the layoff after their severance appeared in the payroll account, according to TechCrunch. A definite facepalm moment for sure. The layoffs were meant to be announced on March 9th, but the company made the mistake of rolling out severance pay too early.

An employee who found out of their layoff in such a manner said , "Better Layoffs have started. Severance showing in our Workday app (which is payroll) as of 12 AM respective time zones. No email, no call, nothing. This was handled disgustingly." The employee added, "Leadership remained absolutely silent, never acknowledged anything in regards to layoffs. They still haven't."

In the letter, Ryan disclosed that affected employees would be notified of their terminations soon by a member of the company's leadership team. He also said that affected employees would also be getting 60 to 80 days of severance and three months of COBRA health care coverage.

Ryan went on to add, "This has not been an easy few months, and I want to express my sincere thanks to every member of the Better team for your hard work and focus," He concluded, "Our strongest days lie ahead."

The largest portion of those being laid off are said to be in sales and operations. In particular, most of the refinance teams are being laid off.

There is a bit of history of inappropriate behavior when it comes to CEO and founder Garg. It seems he has bee accused of insulting staff and investors, as well as a history of verbal abuse. This could very well be what has led to the need for laying off employees. The company's reputation has taken a huge hit and is apparently making it difficult to attract new business. Of course, this latest gaffe won't bode well for the company either.

The way the layoffs were handled in December led to a number of the company's higher ups resigning. This included the company's VP of Communications, Head of Public Relations, and Head of Marketing. It is said they were just the first of many executive departures following the December Zoom incident. It will be interesting to see how this latest incident will affect the company moving forward.