Melina Murray

For those of you who don’t know Zappos, they are an online shoe/accessories store.  The beauty of Zappos is their open communication- public and private. The company is incredibly present on twitter, with the CEO frequently posting about the daily happenings at the company.

Today was a very sad day at Zappos…they had to lay off 8% of the company.  What makes Zappos stand out, though, is the degree of compassion, openness and communication they showed. Tony Hsieh (CEO) made public the email sent out to all employees regarding the lay off- why, how, what.

I don’t need to describe it.  You just need to read it.  Zappos Update

Oh- and just another note.  When you visit the main Zappos website, notice that the company notes one of its core values at the bottom, along with videos with employees.  A rare site indeed.

How is this for a layoff story?

The company is small and the layoff was minimal, so there was no official notice.  The week before the actual layoff, the employee, “Sam”, was talking with co-workers.  One co-worker mentioned they were surprised to be working on a new project with “XYZ Company”.  This was Sam’s client and through the conversation, Sam realized the project discussed was her project.  In asking questions, Sam discovered that not only had her manager told the co-worker they would be on the new project, the project database, accessible to all employees, had been updated with the same information.

After the meeting, Sam reviewed the database, concerned and confused.  All of Sam’s projects were highlighted and reassigned. Again, this information was available at any time to anyone in the company.

The next morning, Sam looked again, and the changes were gone. Her projects were back as her own.  In addition, her manager canceled their weekly meeting and refused to reschedule, staying out of the office for most of the week.

The day of the termination, Sam’s manager presented her with a Recognition Award for her work.  That afternoon, she was laid off. There was no severance agreement, no severance pay. Needless to say Sam left with a very negative feeling towards the company.

Combine that bad feeling with the fact her company, a services company, has no protection against employees taking clients.   They have nothing in writing that prohibits employees from retaining/using intellectual property (including client lists).

See a potential problem?

(note: Names were changed to protect confidentiality)