Work From the Office, Get Laid Off at Home

This week, McDonald’s asked corporate employees, who usually work from the office at least three days a week, to do the job from home. The plan was to lay off hundreds of employees, DealBook hears, and the company preferred to deliver its news virtually.

McDonald’s isn’t the only company to tweak the layoff playbook. In January, Google laid off thousands via email. And Mark Zuckerberg, the C.E.O. of Meta, last month announced plans for a year of big cuts in a 2,000-word memo, explaining that Meta staff “wanted more transparency sooner into any restructuring plans.”

Like many work norms, how to fire people is being rewritten in the wake of the pandemic, when downsizing companies often had little choice but to make layoffs via Slack, Zoom and email, and often did so sloppily. With offices open again, and remote work more common, companies now have options — and it’s not necessarily clear what is best for workers.

“If we had this conversation three years ago, I would have said this is cruel and unusual punishment,” said Bob Sutton, a professor at Stanford and the author of “The No Asshole Rule,” about remote firing. “But it’s changed so dramatically since the pandemic that I’m confused.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/business/dealbook/work-from-the-office-get-laid-off-at-home.html