Intuit lays off 1,800 employees and labels many as underperformers, Samsung workers extend strike

Greetings, comms pros! Let’s take a look at a few news stories from the last week and see what we can learn from them.

1. Intuit conducts a layoff while identifying over a thousand people losing their jobs as “underperformers”

When companies lay people off, it’s typical for organizations to cite financials or the need to downsize during a reorg. But when financial company Intuit, which owns TurboTax and MailChimp, among other subsidiaries, cut 1,800 jobs, it said employee performance was a primary factor in the decision.

CEO Sasan Goodzari revealed the details behind the cuts in a note shared to the Inuit site, explicitly stating that the company doesn’t cut jobs to lower costs.

It is never easy to say goodbye to our colleagues and friends and we are committed to treating everyone who has been impacted by these changes with the compassion and respect they deserve.

Let me first start with who is impacted by these decisions:

We’ve significantly raised the bar on our expectations of employee performance, resulting in approximately 1,050 employees leaving the company who are not meeting expectations and who we believe will be more successful outside of Intuit.

Goodzari gave details on severance pay and healthcare coverage for affected employees, which amounted to a minimum of 16 weeks and six months, respectively.

Intuit’s rationale might be unusual to see, but it was its execution was transparent and straightforward. By getting leadership out ahead of the process with clarity and empathy, and most important, backing up the statement of employee appreciation with action via severance packages, Intuit handled a tough situation as best they could, even while cutting jobs and reforming employee expectations.

2. Samsung workers continue strike

Samsung employees in South Korea have committed to extending their strike indefinitely after they claimed management refused to hold any meaningful talks with them.

According to The Guardian:

“We haven’t spoken to management since we started the strike on Monday,” the National Samsung Electronics Union vice-president, Lee Hyun-kuk, said.

Members are demanding a 3.5% increase in base salary and a day off to mark the union’s founding. Lee said management previously offered a 3% rise in base salary but the union is pushing for an extra 0.5% to reflect inflation.

However, Samsung denied the claims, saying there had been no impact on production at the leading subsidiary of the South Korean group. “Samsung Electronics will ensure no disruptions occur in the production lines. The company remains committed to engaging in good faith negotiations with the union,” the company said in a statement.

There are two sides to every story, but during union negotiations, the following steps are a must, according to a piece we ran earlier this year:

• First, ensure that you acknowledge the rights of workers in your organization to unionize. But make sure your statements aren’t empty words. If they are, people might see right through them and view your stance as antagonistic to the workers who are unionizing, which is a great way to kill company culture and reputation. Sometimes it’s just better to support the legal rights of workers to unionize and not say much. In this case, less can be more. Additionally, ensure that you aren’t restricting workers’ right to communicate about unionization. If they’re allowed to talk during work, they’re allowed to talk about unionizing.
• Second, be sure that your communications align with your organization’s mission and values. Learn about what the forming union is aiming to accomplish and work to see how that fits into your company’s culture. Regardless of the action the workers take, it’ll make it easier for you to communicate well with employees if you know what’s important to them.
• Lastly, make sure that you and your leaders are prepared to talk about labor movements. This trend is a burgeoning one and doesn’t seem likely to fade any time soon. If you want to communicate authentically and effectively about unions, get ready now and save yourself a whole lot of on-the-fly work in the future.

Union comms are delicate, and you need to approach them with care and genuine concern. It’ll bear watching to see how this Samsung saga plays out.

3. Zoom chief people officer talks about why the company ended remote work despite facilitating it for so many organizations

Zoom enabled millions of workers to stay connected through the most isolated parts of the pandemic. That’s why it raised some eyebrows when the video platform called its employees back to their offices in the name of increased collaboration, among other things. In a recent article for Fortune, Zoom chief people officer Matthew Saxon explained the rationale.

“Connecting people has been really important as we’ve expanded out beyond our core into other verticals,” Zoom’s chief people officer, Matthew Saxon, explained in a recent Fortune interview. “We are still majority-remote, but I think a lot of people forget our many products and solutions that are only designed for in-office work.”

Zoom has customers, “by the way, who span the gamut,” said Saxon, who joined the company from Meta in 2022. “We’ve got customers who are completely in the office. We’ve got customers who are completely remote, and we’ve got all the various flavors of hybrid in between. We want to ensure we’re very customer-centric; that means really, truly understanding the customer use case and pain points.”

Building customer relationships can be tough to do remotely, so the company told workers that they must come into the office two days a week. Saxon reported that productivity increased almost immediately.

It’s notable — and to some, might read as a bit hypocritical — to see such a paragon of remote work speaking about the need for in-office work, and it raises questions about the extent to which work locations can make the difference between (in Saxon’s words) “surviving” and “thriving.” Comms can play a key role in evaluating the performance, morale, and policymaking aspects of decisions around remote vs. hybrid vs. in-office work, and providing the data to inform those decisions. Citing those numbers and backing up decisions with clear reasoning can help maintain the buy-in of employees impacted by policy changes.

4. How about some good news?

• A Pennsylvania woman won $5 million on a scratch-off after beating cancer.
• ‘Frog saunas’ could help protect the amphibians from disease.
• Hobbyists in Scotland restored a steam train to its former glory.
• Ragan Training is great for communications pros to find inspiration and resources.
• You should be rewarded for your work. Find out how to earn an award here!

Have a great weekend comms all-stars!

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports, a good pint and ’90s trivia night.