Executive who fired 900 for Zoom returns to office after consulting coach, says newspaper

Vishal Garg, the chief executive who laid off 900 employees via Zoom last December, will resume his role at Better.com. A board of directors of the company sent a letter to employees in which it informs that Garg will return to his duties after reflecting on his leadership during the period in which he was away and consulting a corporate coach.

“We have confidence in Vishal and the changes he is committed to making to provide the kind of leadership, focus and vision that Better needs at this critical time,” the board says, according to the Wall Street Journal, which had access to the document. .

Also according to the newspaper, the letter also says that the board will expand the company’s leadership and is already looking for employees for positions of direction and head of human resources, among others.

Vishal Garg’s case came to light in December, when a video showing the chief executive firing about 900 employees over a Zoom video call was posted online and had millions of views.

“If you’re on this call, you’re part of an unlucky bunch that’s getting fired. Your contract here will be terminated immediately,” Garg said at the time.

Those laid off were part of teams such as recruitment, diversity and inclusion and represented 9% of the company’s workforce.

Days later, Garg apologized to employees in a letter, in which he said he had made a mistake in executing the layoffs.

“I know that the way I communicated this news made the difficult situation even worse,” he said.

Even so, the day after the apology, Better.com sent a statement to employees informing them that it had decided to remove Garg from the position “with immediate effect”, the same expression used by the CEO at the time of the collective resignation.

In addition, the company stated that it would hire an independent third-party company to conduct a cultural and leadership assessment in its corporate environment.