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Trussle-owner Better.com plans fourth layoff in under nine months
In yet another firing blunder, leaked documents showed the names of Better's laid off employees three days early.
Digital mortgage lender Better.com – parent company of fintech Trussle – has undergone its fourth round of layoffs in just nine months.
The company acquired British mortgage and insurance broker Trussle last July and began its series of layoffs on 1 December, just five months later.
Better first came under fire for its less than smooth firing of around 900 employees over a Zoom call.
While this was not unusual during the pandemic, this one in particular ended up going viral and resulted in CEO and co-founder Vishal Garg taking a month-long “break” from the company.
A few months later, Better laid off another estimated 3,000 of the remaining 8,000 employees in the US and India after “accidentally roll[ing] out the severance pay slips too early”.
A spokesperson for Better said the company is “making prudent decisions to adjust to market dynamics so we can continue to serve our customers for the long term” in confirmation of the layoffs.
First reported by TechCrunch ahead of the actual layoffs, sources suggested the company had once again blundered through its delivery.
This time, sources said that a list of names of some people who were scheduled to be laid off on 26 August was leaked internally on 23 August.
As a result, those employees were “immediately terminated” three days before they should have been.
According to a post on Blind, an anonymous community forum for professionals and verified employees, a senior leader at the company had the list in an email inbox accessible by other employees.
“The layoff will affect all departments and all roles allegedly, although with how much headcount has already dwindled since the first disaster back during last December’s RIF [reduction in force] it’s a wonder the company doesn’t merely close up shop for good.” the employee wrote.
While it is currently unclear how many people and in which departments will be laid off, one worker estimated “at least 250 or more” and “all from the US side” according to TechCrunch.
In under nine months, Trussle’s parent company has shown just how not to handle layoffs – it has let go of thousands of workers, seen several senior executives leave and delayed a SPAC that it recently said was still in the works.
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