CEO goes viral with tearful photo after laying off employees

A LinkedIn user went viral with a tearful photo after his dismissal. It turns out that this user was not fired, but the CEO responsible for the dismissal of some employees in the last week.

Braden Wallake, director of the American marketing company HyperSocial, published a text on the social network last Wednesday (10) explaining that firing employees was one of the hardest things he has ever done in his life. To accompany the account, he included a photo crying.

“On days like today, I’d like to be a businessman who’s driven only by money and doesn’t care who he’s hurt along the way. But I’m not,” Wallake wrote in the publication.

“I just want people to see that not every CEO out there is insensitive and doesn’t care when he has to fire people.”

The businessman also stated that he loves his employees, stressing that he knows that this is not professional on his part. “Every one of them. Every story. Every thing that makes them smile and every thing that makes them cry,” he wrote.

This Tuesday (16), the publication has about 50,000 likes and 10,000 comments, including criticism and praise. Although some users said that Wallake had victimized himself, he told PR Week that the result of the repercussion was positive.

That’s because several businessmen wrote to him identifying themselves with the story. “People have no idea what really happened, what actions we took, what conversations we had with these employees,” she said.

In a post made the same day, the CEO apologized and said that the intention was not to make a post about himself.

“It was not my duty to disclose the names of officials publicly. What I want to do now is try to improve this situation,” he wrote. In that post, he encouraged followers to post their resumes.