Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™.
Significant layoffs have been a consistent theme throughout the world of work for over three years. Whether you work in tech, media, or finance you have seen the news or know of those who have been impacted. Gone is the employment heyday of the pandemic, when firms across the board ramped up their hiring efforts in 2020 and 2021. This led to people embracing new opportunities and getting bumps in compensation that were not previously available. Unfortunately, when the boosts to businesses and balance sheets went away, firms started laying off their workforces in droves.
Initially, the reasons behind the cuts were due to overhiring, and companies were looking to streamline their workforces and management in order to move the organizations more nimbly. The media started to refer to it as a “White-Collar Recession” because while other sectors like hospitality and health services saw employment growth, the white-collar sector saw reductions in employment, and approximately 550,000 tech employees have been laid off since 2022 across startups and big tech companies.
In recent months, companies have switched their tune, saying they are not cutting headcount because of cost savings but because of performance. Meta and Microsoft are two companies that have recently started letting go of low performers. In a job market like this one, the reason behind losing a job can heavily impact how one navigates their job search. I believe that layoffs and how they are conducted can either strengthen or diminish the trust between management and employees, and this piece will touch on the current state of trust in tech.
In this week alone we have seen both Meta and Microsoft start laying off the employees that they have identified as low performers. Given that performance evaluations are objective to companies but subjective to employees, it can often bring up questions when companies say the people they cut are truly low performers. This started to come to light as people laid off from Meta and Microsoft went to Linkedin and Reddit to voice their frustrations over being let go. Some shared performance review evaluations stating they were anything but low performers. When there is a difference between what a company says and what a company does in relation to their employees, it erodes the trust needed for the relationship to work and grow in a healthy way.
Gallup tracks 16 representative institutions in the U.S. and tracks the trust in them over time. According to a recent poll, the company has seen a decline in trust in 11 out of the 16 institutions it tracks. The biggest declines in trust came from Congress, Television News, and Big Business, and the institutions that saw the least decline in trust were small businesses, the military, and the police. Results showed there is an overall decline in trust with big businesses. However previous generations had automatic trust in institutions in a way that isn’t often seen now because fewer people are spending time in those spaces and are instead in spaces like the internet. For those who remain at a company after layoffs, lack of trust means that they not only have less trust in their leadership but also less trust in one another. A low-trust organization breeds distrust, and unnecessary competition between colleagues damages people’s lives inside and outside of work.
Also when someone is let go for low performance, potential hiring managers may have a misperception about the person before they even read their resume, which can make the job search more difficult for job seekers than it already is. A mark of leadership is not only how they welcome you into the house but how they see you out the door.
In 2020, when Airbnb lost a lion’s share of its business due to the COVID-19 pandemic and had to conduct layoffs, it went as far as to create a talent directory as well as a talent placement program for those affected employees. Alums of companies have also created their own networks to connect with one another after layoffs and offer a helping hand. Those types of actions are how one can go about rebuilding the trust that has been lost within certain institutions and among co-workers.
The low-performer label is one that I believe does more harm than good for the employment prospects of those let go. It also hurts those who were let go previously and may still be on the job market. There are much better ways to phrase a reduction in workforce and still get the stock bump that companies tend to get when they let employees go, since it’s a sign to Wall Street that companies are moving more efficiently.
Without trust you have nothing, so it’s time for companies to take a more proactive approach to building back the trust between management and labor. People need to be able to believe and trust that if they do right by the business the business will do right by them.
