Nothing is more detrimental to a workplace’s productivity than having to watch trusted colleagues being escorted out of the building while the workforce is massively reduced.
And given the mood currently prevailing in big tech, experts are warning that job cuts could damage the fabric of these once untouchable, highly creative institutions.
“I think these companies got carried away with over-hiring and they weren’t careful and they just hired haphazardly and now they’re facing huge layoffs,” said Bill George, former Medtronic CEO and leadership expert, on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “I’m telling you, the impact will ripple through to their culture.”
Potential culture shocks in Big Tech aren’t too hard to find.
Salesforce (CRM) — a long-time proponent of its friendly Ohana employee culture under co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff — announced earlier this month that it would be shedding 10% of its workforce and implementing select real estate sales and office space reductions.
Microsoft (MSFT) — which cleaned up its once-raunchy Steve Ballmer-like culture under CEO Satya Nadella — followed the news with 10,000 layoffs of its own. And Amazon (AMZN) then announced 18,000 layoffs, even though its culture has always been survival of the fittest and dates back to founder Jeff Bezos.
In November 2022, Meta (META) revealed 10,000 layoffs. Snap (SNAP) laid off 20% of its workforce in August. Both companies were once put on a pedestal for offering generous employee perks like quality free lunches.
A view of Facebook parent company Meta’s headquarters in Dublin on Wednesday November 9, 2022. (Photo by Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images)
In Meta’s case, it recently laid off cafeteria workers to save money — a move that could come at the expense of its corporate culture.
George believes that both innovation and diversity efforts are being hampered by the widespread layoffs in the tech industry.
“I think it’s going to be a dose of cold water for a lot of those employees who are going to say, ‘Maybe this culture isn’t going to be as great as I thought it would be,'” added George. “I think they’re going to have real cultural fallout.”
The story goes on
Brian Sozzi is a freelance writer and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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