Indian-American CEO who caused outrage firing 900 employees over Zoom eased out – Times of India

Indian-American CEO who caused outrage firing 900 employees over Zoom eased out – Times of India

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WASHINGTON: The Indian-American chief executive officer (CEO), dubbed the Prophet of Zoom, for firing 900 employees over a video conference is taking time off amid “a leadership and cultural assessment” pledge by the board of directors of the company.
Vishal Garg, the 43-year-old CEO of mortgage finance company Better.com attracted worldwide infamy for the mass sacking of nearly 10% of the company’s workforce last week. On Thursday, Better.com’s Board of Directors said Vishal will be “taking time off effective immediately” while revealing it has engaged an independent 3rd party firm “to do a leadership and cultural assessment”.
“The recommendations of this assessment will be taken into account to build a long-term sustainable and positive culture at Better. We have much work to do and we hope that everyone can refocus on our customers and support each other to continue to build a great company and a company we can be proud of,” the board said in an email first reported on Vice.com
The board said during this interim period CFO Kevin Ryan will be managing the day-to-day decisions of the company and reporting to the board.
Garg faced workplace outrage across America last week not only for the peremptory manner, in which he fired 900 employees over Zoom during the holiday season, but also for the language he used, including accusing staff of stealing.
“You guys know that at least 250 of the people terminated were working an average of 2 hours a day while clocking 8 hours+ a day in the payroll system? They were stealing from you and stealing from our customers who pay the bills that pay our bills. Get educated,” he wrote on the professional network Blind.
Garg later expressed some remorse in a follow-up message posted on Better.com. “I want to apologize for the way I handled the layoffs last week. I failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for the individuals who were affected and for their contributions to Better. I own the decision to do the layoffs, but in communicating it I blundered the execution. In doing so, I embarrassed you,” he said.
“I realise that the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse. I am deeply sorry and am committed to learning from this situation and doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be,” he added.



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