Meta and Salesforce Seeking to Re-hire Workers
Meta and Salesforce Seeking to Re-hire Workers
I recently saw several news stories about some high-tech companies seeking to rehire employees that they had either laid off or had left on their own. Most notably, Meta and Salesforce are actively going after previous or alumni employees. In fact, Salesforce held an Alumni recruiting event recently where they gave out teddy bears wearing a boomerang sweatshirt.
Reading these articles made me wonder, if people would go back and if so under what conditions.
How They Got In This Position
In most cases, these tech companies got in this position because of their own doing; they hired really quickly to support investments and when they stumbled, they laid people off.
For example, while Meta made huge investment in metaverse, Meta’s virtual and augmented reality branch lost $21 billion since September 2023. For all the noise and investment, the platform has only garnered about 300,000 monthly users, most of which are gaming as opposed to real business or commerce. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg recent keynote at its Connect conference didn’t even mention Metaverse.
Salesforce laid-off over 1000 employees after a big post-pandemic hiring boom. They were also dealing with upheaval in its board room and paying Matthew McConaughey $10 million a year to be a spokesperson. The company likes to position itself as competitive to Microsoft, Google, Oracle and all the other collaboration and workplace providers, but they don’t have the commitment to the markets. And now, the company is investing heavily in its AI capabilities.
Now both companies are heavy hitters and will continue to grow in their dominant markets. However, their questionable investment decisions resulted in people getting laid off.
Would You Go Back?
So, if you didn’t find another job since you got laid off from any number of these companies, and they call you back the answer is easy. If you like the job and like the company, it seems like it might be worth considering.
However, if you’ve got a new job and one of these companies came knocking at your door, why would you go back unless it’s for a better job with more money. Remember the management that made some of these poor investments to start are still there.
Do you trust them to do a better job? How were you treated during the layoff? Are you going to be able to do your job positively given that you were previously laid off?
The other side of the coin is, if your former employer comes knocking on your door, you may be in a great negotiating position. It seems like a good opportunity to negotiate for a better job, more salary or work flexibility.
The best strategy may be to consider it as any potential job where you are interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you.
Changes To Lay-offs
The best example of a bad layoff is Better.com who’s CEO laid off 900 people on a Zoom call; “if you’re on this call we’re eliminating your job.” Tacky to say the least, but also bad business. If you don’t lay people off in an empathetic and positive way, you’re never going to be able to rehire them.
In this market it is critical that organizations treat employees with respect and integrity if they want to have an ongoing relationship which could include rehiring. Offer employees appropriate severance, job search resources and education resources.
I once heard a CEO who I respect say that he treats everyone he meets as a potential future customer, partner, or employee.
Bottom Line
Technologies are changing so quickly that organizations are having to be nimble about how they hire and even lay off employees. Most of these companies are making significant investments in AI which is driving a lot of these investment decisions. Both of these cases illustrate the importance more than ever for employers to treat their resources well even if not especially during layoffs.
For employees, these examples may provide some insight as to how to approach returning or not to a previous employer. Return to a job because you like the job, the company and are positive about the prospects.
Decoding the Role:Artificial Intelligence Architect vs. Solution & Application Architects
Adopting Artificial Intelligence-enabled technologies is as much a people, process, organization, and strategy issue as it is about technology. The best AI-enabled solution will go nowhere if it doesn’t address a future-state business need and is accepted by users. Adopting AI-based solutions requires outside-in customer, user, and business thinking; not inside-out technology first thinking. Adopting AI requires a business and future-focused architect to help guide the integration of people, process, information, solutions and AI.
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- Why is an AI Architect Needed?
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