The fallout from the controversial way Better CEO Vishal Garg laid off
Patrick Lenihan, vice president of communications, Tanya Hayre, head of public relations, and Melanie Hahn, head of marketing, all left the company voluntarily, sources confirmed.
The departures follow one former Better employee posting a video of the Zoom meeting of Garg announcing the immediate termination of the affected employees on social media, along with subsequent published reports that he then said some of those who lost their jobs had been stealing from the company. Other reports of
In a subsequent email to Better's remaining employees obtained by National Mortgage News, Garg apologized for the way he handled the firings.
"I own the decision to do the layoffs, but in communicating it I blundered the execution," the email said. "In doing so, I embarrassed you."
It made a bad situation worse, he said and added that he committed to learning from what happened and "doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be."
Announcing the layoffs via a Zoom call might have been the only way to do such a move, given the multiple locations for the people involved, Amy Spurling, CEO of human resources software company Compt, said in an emailed statement. But firing the diversity, equity and inclusion team wasn't a good look for Better's image, she said.
"You can't claim to be dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workplace and then unceremoniously cut the entire DE&I team on a group call," said Spurling.
Still, one expert believes Better could have profited from the bad publicity.
Analysis of Google search data by Hennessey Digital found that online searches for Better.com worldwide exploded 4,400% in one day, potentially generating extra revenue from free advertising and worldwide brand recognition.
The average daily search volume was 730 prior to the firings on Dec. 1. That jumped to 31,700 in just one day.
"It's interesting to see how such a brutal act of firing 900 people at once could lead to an exponential online exposure, and it generated press coverage and publicity that would cost the company millions of dollars to obtain otherwise via the traditional methods of advertising," Hennessey Digital CEO Jason Hennessey said in an email. "Whilst this action can be seen as ruthless and brutal, the company actually benefited greatly from it, from a financial point of view."
