Employers want to fire workers without getting shamed on TikTok

Charlotte Hampton and Jo Constantz, Bloomberg News

Disastrous layoffs are being shared on TikTok. Photographer: Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images , Photographer: Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images

Videos of disastrous layoffs accumulating on TikTok are prompting companies to seek help in delivering the bad news.

More people are sharing intimate details and recordings from workplace conversations that used to transpire behind closed doors. TikToks about getting laid off are now routinely dissected in public — from CEOs’ mea culpa memos to awkwardly timed announcements and the precise intonation used by human resources managers.

Fear of social-media backlash has executives, especially from smaller tech firms that don’t have big HR operations, looking for advice on how to lay people off without it blowing up in their faces. Onwards HR, a startup specializes in layoff logistics, says its customer base grew 300 per cent last year.

“They’re like, can you tell us how to do it so that doesn't happen to us?” said Sarah Rodehorst, co-founder and chief executive of Onwards HR. “With social media, everybody’s watching.” 

While the overall jobs market data remains robust, big job cuts are nonetheless showing up in a slew of industries to start the year, most notably in tech, where several of America’s largest employers are nixing hundreds or thousands of positions. United Parcel Service Inc. also announced last week that it will slash 12,000 management jobs, and Citigroup Inc. has said it plans to eliminate 20,000 roles by 2026. Onwards HR offers companies a centralized platform to standardize the layoff process, automate severance payments and enable smoother collaboration across HR, legal and finance teams. But customers want more than just technology, Rodehorst said. They want step-by-step guidance on how to have tough conversations with people who are being let go. Rodehorst tells her clients that they should allow every laid-off worker the opportunity to meet with their manager to ask questions. Meticulous planning is another non-negotiable.

Rodehorst has culled these best practices from experience, but she’s considering offering more formal training and certification programs since there’s so much demand.

A mismanaged layoff can damage a company’s reputation and its recruiting. Last month, an employee at tech firm Cloudflare shared a recording of her layoff on TikTok, unleashing a torrent of criticism. The CEO said Cloudflare made a mistake in “not being more kind and humane,” in a statement on X.

Internally, layoffs can even result in other employees calling it quits.  Worker morale often  languishes for months after a massive round of job cuts, according to employer review site Glassdoor Inc.

Regardless of social media, HR experts say layoffs should always be handled with care.

“You could be ruining someone’s life,” said Jenny Dearborn, a veteran HR officer who has helped restructure tech firms, including the now-defunct Sun Microsystems, which recruited her in 2003 to help the company move some jobs abroad.

At Hewlett-Packard in the late 1990s, Dearborn says the company showed a tape of an executive talking about the emotional toll layoffs can take on individuals, their families and their identities. Decades later, one line stayed with her: “If you don’t stay up all night sick to your stomach, then you’re not doing it right.” 

Last year, Kim Rohrer helped lead two separate job cuts at hiring and payroll platform Oyster that impacted about 120 people. The fully-remote company had to comply with labor laws across 70 countries and coordinate day-of communication across time zones. It was “extremely complicated,” she said.

Rohrer and her team advised managers on how to deliver the news over Zoom — use a natural, warm and empathetic tone of voice — and what to do if the conversation got contentious. They had scripts prepared for different situations and different reactions. They also put together over 20 pages of documentation addressing common questions like how to access benefits and how handoffs will work for ongoing projects.

Both times Oyster laid off workers, HR kept the timing of the notifications tight. The employees were given a bonus week of paid time off so they could review the information and ask questions before they were officially let go. They were also encouraged to apply for other open roles at the company.

In September, Rohrer found her own name on the cut list. “I know what you’re going to say, it’s fine,” she recalled telling her bosses at the time. “I wrote the script.”

 

Black Canadians report high levels of racism despite workplace improvements

Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press

Canadian companies are making uneven progress on efforts to make workplaces more inclusive and equitable for Black workers, according to a survey from KPMG in Canada.

In the results of the survey released Monday, a little over 80 per cent of respondents said employers are making improvements — but a similar proportion said they’ve experienced some form of racism or microaggression in the workplace in the past year.

“While there is the overarching perception that progress has been made, still the majority, 81 per cent of people, are feeling racism, and that's a very scary reality,” said Amanda Bartley, senior manager of management consulting at KPMG in Canada. 

The share of Black people experiencing some form of discrimination was up about 10 percentage points from last year’s results, which suggests companies are not pushing below the surface enough to get to the heart of the issues, said Bartley, who is co-chair of the firm’s Black Professionals Network.

To get at the deeper issues, it’s important companies listen to Black employees, she said. 

“Having safe spaces where people can share what they're experiencing, without the potential risk of backlash and repercussions, is a great thing.”

The results of the survey of 1,000 employed Canadians who self-identified as Black also showed that women continue receive less support than men.

Only 68 per cent said their employer had an allyship training program, compared with 81 per cent of men. Women also reported lower levels of being able to bring their genuine self to work, or having allies at work who have spoken up for them. 

“It's important to recognize that Black women continue to be one of the most marginalized groups in workplaces, in society,” said Bartley.

She said companies need to work on creating environments where Black people can stay truer to their values, and don’t feel they need to conform to prescribed mainstream standards of appearance or behaviour just to protect themselves.

“It's really pushing past the respectability politics, which is a conversation that continues to come up. It’s obviously come up more and more with the state of the world.”

The gender disparities among Black workers was also something Rob Davis, KPMG’s chief inclusion, diversity and equity officer, raised as a key concern.

“There is a very different experience in terms of Black men versus Black women, so that’s an area as Canadian businesses we need to continue to focus on.” 

However there are areas for optimism, said Davis, including the 76 per cent of respondents who said that compared with four years ago, their company now has a Black person in the C-suite or on their board of directors.

“That to me is huge, because until Canadian business sees that representation at the senior levels ... it's going to be tough to change.”

The third edition of the survey, conducted between mid-December and January, found there are also concerns that as the economy slows, some of the gains in inclusion could be lost. 

About 80 per cent said they believe Black or racialized people were among the first to lose their jobs over the past year, and as many as 73 per cent said their career progress didn’t materialize because the company was preparing for a slowdown.

It’s important to look beyond a last-in first-out approach, said Davis, and for companies to look at everyone's talent, and consider some of their best might have been recently hired.

To push toward more inclusion and equity, companies also need to look at the data and set targets, he said. KPMG has set representation targets for women and people of colour in the partnership level of the firm, and goals for positions below that level for Black and Indigenous people and those with disabilities. 

The firm has also tied partner compensation to the targets.

“For companies to really move the dial, set targets — not quotas. Quotas are a dirty word for me — put in place concrete actions to meet those targets, and hold your senior leadership accountable,” said Davis.

With so much going on, businesses and leaders can get distracted, but it’s important to keep working on these goals, he said.

“We’ve got to make sure that everybody has the same opportunity to achieve success in Canadian business. As a Canadian society, I think it's important for us to continue to focus on this, and it's going to make us, make the economy, more vibrant and richer.”

 This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2024.

 

Europe’s biggest software company stops offering Teslas to employees

Agatha Cantrill, Bloomberg News

SAP SE will stop offering Tesla Inc. vehicles to its employees after the manufacturer’s repeated price cuts, setting back Elon Musk’s efforts to grow in the company-car market.

Tesla’s prices are fluctuating more than other manufacturers’, complicating planning and increasing risks, SAP’s fleet manager told the German newspaper Handelsblatt.

An SAP spokesperson confirmed the comments Monday and said the company had never offered Teslas to employees in Germany, its biggest market for company cars. The brand made up a small portion of the company’s global fleet.

SAP is joining rental-car firms Hertz Global Holdings Inc. and Sixt SE in pulling back from Tesla purchases in the wake of Musk slashing prices across the lineup in pursuit of sales growth. That’s hurt the resale value of used Teslas and burned rental companies and other fleet owners who count depreciation among their biggest risks to manage.

 

With 'superhuman' artificial intelligence looming, Canada needs law now: AI pioneer

The Canadian Press

Yoshua Bengio, founder and scientific director, Mila-Quebec AI Institute, discusses artificial intelligence, democracy and the future of civilization at the C2MTL conference on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, in Montreal. Bengio told MPs today the government should move to put in place even an imperfect law that would have some provisions that apply immediately. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi

The federal government must move urgently to regulate artificial intelligence, says a top AI pioneer, warning the technology's current trajectory poses major societal risks.

Yoshua Bengio, dubbed a "godfather" of AI, told members of Parliament Monday that Ottawa should put a law in place immediately, even if that legislation is not perfect.

The scientific director at Mila, the Quebec AI Institute, says a "superhuman" intelligence that is as smart as a human being could be developed within the next two decades — or even the next few years. 

"We’re not ready," Bengio said.

One short-term risk of AI is the use of deepfake videos to spread disinformation, he said. They use AI to make it look as though a public figure is saying something they didn't, or doing something that never happened.

The technology can also be used to interact with people through text or dialogue "in a way that can fool a social-media user and make them change their mind on political questions," said Bengio. 

"There’s real concern about use of AI in politically oriented ways that go against the principles of our democracy."

A year or two down the road, the worry is that more-advanced systems can be used for cyberattacks. 

AI systems are getting better and better at programming.

"When these systems get strong enough to defeat our current cyber defences and our industrial digital infrastructure, we are in trouble," Bengio said.

"Especially if these systems fall in the wrong hands."

The House of Commons industry committee where Bengio testified Monday is studying a Liberal government bill that would update privacy law and begin regulating some artificial intelligence systems.

The bill as it's drafted would give the government time to develop regulations, but Bengio says some provisions should take effect right away. 

"With the current approach, it would take something like two years before enforcement (is) possible," he said.

One of the initial rules he said he wants to see implemented is a registry that would require systems with a specified level of capability to report to the government.

Bengio said that would put the responsibility and cost of demonstrating safety on large tech companies developing these systems, rather than on taxpayers.

Bill C-27 was first drafted in 2022 to target what are described as "high-impact" AI systems. 

Bengio said the government should change the legislation's definition of "high-impact" to include technology that poses national security and societal threats. 

That could include any AI systems that bad actors could use to design dangerous cyberattacks and weapons, or systems that find ways to self-replicate despite programming instructions to the contrary.

Generative AI systems like ChatGPT, which can create text, images and videos, emerged for widespread public use after the bill was first introduced.

The government says it plans to amend the legislation to reflect that. 

Liberals say they aim to require companies beyond such systems to take steps ensuring the content they create is identifiable as AI-generated. 

Bengio said it’s "very important to cover general-purpose AI systems because they’re also the ones that could be the most dangerous if misused." 

Catherine Régis, a professor at the Université de Montréal, also said at the committee meeting Monday that the government needs to act urgently, citing recent "meteoric developments in AI, which we’re all familiar with."

Speaking in French, she pointed out that AI regulation is a global effort, and Canada must figure out what to do at the national level if it wants to have a voice.

"Decisions will be taken on a global scale that’ll have an impact on all countries," she said.

Establishing a clear and solid vision at the Canadian level is "one of the essential conditions to play a credible structuring and influential role in global governance."

 

Boeing flags potential delays after supplier finds another problem with some 737 fuselages

The Associated Press

BOEING CO/THE (BA:UN)

206.63 2.75 (1.31%)

As of: 02/05/24 6:08:09 pm
(delayed at least 15 minutes)

Chart Type - 3month

See Full Stock Page »

Boeing discovered another problem in some of its 737 fuselages that may delay deliveries of about 50 aircraft in the latest quality gaffe to plague the manufacturer.

Improperly drilled holes were discovered by Spirit AeroSystems, a major supplier that provides Boeing with fuselages, according to a letter from Stan Deal, CEO of Boeing's commercial airplanes division.

“While this potential condition is not an immediate safety issue and all 737s can continue operating safely, we currently believe we will have to perform rework on about 50 undelivered planes,” Deal said in a letter to employees that was shared Monday.

Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems are facing intense scrutiny over the quality of their work after an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 was forced to make an emergency landing on Jan. 5 when a panel called a door plug blew out of the side of the plane shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon.

The NTSB is investigating the accident, while the Federal Aviation Administration investigates whether Boeing and its suppliers followed quality-control procedures.

Shares of the The Boeing Co., already down 20 per cent this year, slipped another 3 per cent at the opening bell Monday.

Problems with Boeing jets have opened a potential rift with some of its biggest customers. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said last month that the carrier will consider alternative aircraft in the future, and Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci told “NBC Nightly News that “I am more than frustrated and disappointed. I am angry.”

Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, the only other U.S. airline flying the Max 9, reported finding loose hardware in door plugs of other planes they inspected after the accident. The FAA grounded all Max 9s in the U.S. the day after the blowout. Two weeks later, the agency approved the inspection and maintenance process to return the planes to flying.

Alaska Airlines and United Airlines have begun returning some to service.

Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, said last week it was withdrawing a request for a safety exemption needed to certify a new, smaller model of the 737 Max airliner. Boeing asked federal regulators late last year to allow delivery of its 737 Max 7 airliner to customers even though it does not meet a safety standard designed to prevent part of the engine housing from overheating and breaking off during flight.

 

Toronto planner discusses economic impact of World Cup games

BNN Bloomberg

A director of the planning group for the FIFA World Cup in Toronto says the six 2026 games slated to be played in the city could create 3,500 jobs and bring in nearly $400 million.

Over the weekend, representatives with FIFA revealed the schedule of games for the 2026 World Cup that are set to be played in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Toronto’s BMO Field was awarded six games, including one game with Team Canada and a round-of-32 match. Vancouver’s B.C. Place got seven games, two involving Canada, a round-of-32 match and a round-of-16 match.

Sharon Bollenbach, executive director of World Cup hosting 2026 with the City of Toronto, said Toronto stands to benefit economically from the global event.

“For an economy that's still trying to recover post-COVID-19, a big event like this is a boost to our city,” she told BNN Bloomberg in a Monday interview.

“We anticipate over 3,500 jobs, 300,000 visitors and economic activity in the range of close to $400 million. This is an investment in our city that has long-lasting benefit that will have long-lasting legacy.”

Bollenbach said her team has been working on the event for some time, and with the weekend’s announcement, it’s becoming “very real.”

“I don't think we here in Toronto could have done better in terms of the matches that we got and our colleagues in Vancouver the same,” she said.

“I think Canada has done really, really well.”

Preparing for 2026

Of the 16 host stadiums, Toronto’s is the smallest venue and will need significant temporary seating to meet FIFA standards, Bollenbach said.

“We will have a very intimate and an amazing experience at that stadium,” she said.

“We’ve got a lot to do over the next 2.5 years and we're excited to do it. It's a privilege to be bringing this event to our city and to our country.”

The first game in Toronto will be Canada’s opening match of the tournament on June 12, 2026. Vancouver will host its first match the following day.