Four minutes on what would have otherwise been a normal working day is what it took to change their status from employed to unemployed. None of the Indian employees working for a US-based firm thought they would be rendered jobless at the end of a mandatory virtual call they were asked to attend on morning.
The employees had logged in as usual at 9 in the morning and saw a calendar invite for a compulsory online meeting two hours later with the chief operating officer (COO) of the company. An employee has posted on Reddit that the moment the meeting began, the COO disabled all the cameras and microphones and declared that most of the Indian employees had been laid off. He also went on to explain that the layoff had nothing to do with performance but was part of a restructuring exercise.
The suddenness with which the layoff happened has left the employees shocked. To top it all, the COO who had delivered the blow did not stay on to offer any clarifications or answer any queries leaving the employees totally flummoxed.
There was no warning and no hints were dropped to prepare them for this. It was conveyed to the employees that those impacted would be notified via an official e-mail. They were also informed that those laid off would be allowed to encash pending leaves and would receive the full salary for October at the end of the month.
