Better.com CEO Vishal Garg fired 900 of his employees in a brutal Zoom call on Wednesday. The Indian-American CEO said market efficiency, performance and productivity were the reasons behind the mass lay-off.
"This isn't news that you're going to want to hear...If you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated effective immediately," Vishal Garg, 43, told employees of the mortgage company during the Zoom call, according to CNN.
The fired employees made up about 9 per cent of Better.com's workforce. Among those fired were the company's entire diversity, equity and inclusion team.
One worker filmed the call and leaked it on social media, where the CEO has received flak for firing employees right before the holidays.
According to Daily Mail, Mr Garg said during the three-minute call that the decision to fire 900 employees was a "challenging" one.
"This is the second time in my career I'm doing this and I do not do not want to do this. The last time I did it, I cried. This time, I hope to be stronger," he said. "We are laying off about 15% of the company for a number of reasons - the market, efficiency and performances and productivity."
A Better.com spokesman later corrected the 15 per cent figure, saying the actual number was closer to 9 per cent.
Mr Garg reportedly lashed out at his staff later for being "lazy and unproductive".
"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?" he wrote in a blog post on the network Blind. "They were stealing from you and stealing from our customers who pay the bills that pay our bills," he added.
The CEO later confirmed to Fortune that he had made the comments under the anonymous username 'uneducated'.
This is not the first time that Vishal Garg has courted controversy. In the past, he was criticised for an email that he sent staff members. "You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS... SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME," Mr Garg had written in the email, a copy of which was obtained by Forbes.
