Layoffs are never easy. But in some cases, management delivers bad news so poorly that it draws widespread public attention. Mortgage lender Better.com is the latest example. On December 3, CEO Vishal Garg invited 900 employees to a Zoom meeting that lasted only six minutes. During the meeting, with almost no preamble or explanation, he told some employees they were being let go due to market, performance, and productivity reasons. "If you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off," he told employees. "Your employment is terminated effective immediately."

Garg's approach may have earned himcomparisons to the Grinch, but it also raises an important question for HR leaders and other managers: when bad news must be delivered, what is therightway to do it? HR Dive spoke with several experts about how leaders should act when they are about to give a large number of employees a terrible day.

Consider the meeting size

In the view of human motivation and engagement expertHedda Bird, Garg's first mistake was holding a mass meeting. "All the literature and my experience show that this kind of bad news is best delivered one-on-one, meaning one manager facing one employee who is being laid off, or at least a small group of two or three, three or four people," she said.

Facing 900 people may seem like a daunting task, but Bird believes it is worth the time. "You might say he did it to save time and money," she said. "Obviously, if 900 people each had a one-on-one conversation... each conversation might be short, but it consumes a huge amount of management time. He might have thought: 'Okay, I'll do it all at once and save money.' I think he now realizes that wasn't the way to save money."

Bird suggests that if a company unfortunately needs to conduct large-scale layoffs, the head of HR (or a similar role) should prepare a brief, clear statement to give to managers at all levels, so they can be ready for one-on-one or small group conversations. The CEO could first send a company-wide email informing employees that some will receive difficult news that day.

For the initial meeting, duration is not important, Bird explains: once people hear bad news, "they won't hear anything else you say after that." Deliver the news gently and humanely, then let them know there will be follow-up arrangements later—whether it's an all-hands meeting, deeper conversations with the HR team, or other forms.

Consider the timing

Ebenezer Scrooge became a holiday classic for a reason: showing cold corporate behavior near the holidays sends a signal that "profits come before people."

Although there is no "good time" for layoffs, "you don't do this a few weeks before Christmas," Rajeev Kapur, President and CEO of events and training company 1105 Media, told HR Dive. "He raised $750 million from investors just a few weeks ago," he said. "Are you telling me he couldn't wait until January 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th?"

The reason Vishal chose that moment to make the announcement is unclear, though there is unconfirmed speculation—whetherinternalor external—that the layoffs were a precondition for the $750 million funding Kapur mentioned, and the timing was rushed. Kapur said that if employers have a choice, they should try to wait until January.

"Leave your ego at the door"

One heavily criticized aspect of Garg's layoff speech was his focus on himself. "This is the second time I've done this in my career, and I don't want to—I don't want to do this," Garg said in awidely circulated video. "Last time I cried. This time I wanted to be stronger."

While it may be tempting to try to show empathy by talking about one's own emotions, it often backfires. "It was all about himself, not about the people he was talking to," Bird said.

Similarly, Kapur pointed out the "complete lack of gratitude" in the message. "One thing I learned early in my career is to leave your ego at the door," he said. Employers may need some self-drive, but what matters more is the ability to show gratitude, empathy, and accountability, Kapur said.

After the layoffs, reports of Garg'spast behaviorbegan to surface, with former employees speaking to the media, andold articleswere resurfaced, including an email obtained by Forbes showing that Vishal hadcalled employees "embarrassing" and "dumb dolphins"。

Experts say such behavior is not only mean and emotionally abusive, but also completely unhelpful. "If you sit at the top of the corporate ladder, you have two types of customers: internal customers and external customers," Kapur said. "You have to make sure you take care of your internal customers as well as—or even more than—your actual customers. Because if your internal customers are strong, happy, looking forward to coming to work, looking forward to waking up in the morning... they will make your external customers happy. It's not a chicken-and-egg question."

Garg may have laid off the employees on the call, but the remaining roughly 90% of employees are still on the job. After witnessing colleagues being dismissed unceremoniously, and then beingmalignedby Garg on the anonymous workplace app Blind, some "internal customers" may also be considering leaving.

Clear and transparent communication

One problem with Better.com's layoffs was that they seemed to come without warning to employees. Employers can better cushion the blow by maintaining transparency about company-wide and department-level performance on an ongoing basis.

Corporate value strategist and author of "Building the Soul of a Company"Ralf Spechttold HR Dive that Airbnb demonstrated this kind of transparency when it was forced to lay off nearly a quarter of its employees in May 2020. "That memo began with: 'This is the seventh memo I've written to you'—which implied they had already received six, and all six examined the challenges the pandemic posed to the entire hospitality industry," Specht said. (Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky had also spoken candidly about the possibility of layoffs before the memo; "When you asked me if we were going to have layoffs, I said anything was possible," he wrote.)

Laid-off employees also need prompt, transparent information about company support measures, whether it's severance pay or other help from the HR team.In a video, former Better.com employee Christian Chapman said none of the laid-off employees received an email explaining next steps. They were left in limbo for "hours" after learning of the layoffs, "with no information," Chapman said.

In contrast, Airbnb's memo detailed the reasons for the layoff decision, the process for determining who was laid off, and the support the company provided to those leaving, including at least 14 weeks of severance, the elimination of the one-year equity vesting requirement (making all departing employees shareholders), and 12 months of COBRA health insurance coverage.

Kapur, who furloughed employees early in the pandemic, said he held all-hands meetings and employee meetings to explain in detail the reasoning behind the decision and outline the support the company provided. "People... just want to be treated like adults, not children," he said. "(Garg) failed completely on every level."

Intervene earlier

While many layoffs stem from external factors and are unavoidable, Vishal attributed the layoffs of at least 250 people in a series of messages to performance, accusing the laid-off employees of "stealing" from their colleagues. Vishal said he and the management team had carefully reviewed "individual employee productivity data," including "missed call rates, number of incoming and outgoing calls, employees being late to customer meetings, and other factors,"Fortunewrote in reviewing these messages.

Assuming that information is accurate, Kapur and Bird said Garg and the management team should have intervened long before layoffs were on the agenda.

"You talk to your team," Kapur said. "'Hey, folks, we're seeing these things in the data... How do we solve this? Where's the problem? Let's talk to the team. Is something wrong?'"

"If (Better.com) did indeed have some underperforming employees, the general principle is... to intervene at the earliest moment, even if you think it's a minor issue," Bird said. Through simple communication, employees have the opportunity to explain the situation; if the issue involves childcare needs or similar, the employer can also learn what is disrupting the employee's workflow and what benefits should be offered in the future.

Equally important, communication lets employees know which behaviors are being noticed and which are not, allowing them to correct course before problems escalate. This attention can be done in a "very light-touch" way, Bird said, framed as support rather than blame. If performance continues to decline, it can be addressed in subsequent conversations, with the focus still on support—while remaining transparent.

Having chosen a different path, Better.com is now dealing with the fallout from Garg's decision and the way it was carried out. Three senior leaders have resigned. Gargapologizedto remaining employees after the meeting and is currently onleave。