In the world of change management and crisis communications, knowing your audiences, messaging them effectively and understanding proper outreach protocol can make the difference between doing things right and having things go horribly wrong.
In the case of Stripe, a global tech company based in San Francisco, announcing termination notices to its employees became almost a comedy of errors in recent days although it was all far from comical. Evidently some soon to be terminated staffers inexplicably received emails containing a yellow cartoon duck. Others received correspondence communicating incorrect separation dates. Messages delivered wrong via technology – from a technology company.
Almost as convoluted was Stripe’s explanation for why is was laying off 300 individuals, equating to approximately 3.5% of its global workforce. A spokesperson confirmed that the layoffs were part of an annual review and “planning for growth” strategy with aims to increase its workforce from 8,500 to 10,000 by the end of the year. Perhaps these 300 were underperformers but an explanation of “growth by elimination” does not make for great optics, especially for employee (and client) attraction and retention (not to mention overall internal morale).
One would hope that these employees did not learn of their termination via email but, rather, through the internal review process and/or other one-on-one management interaction, not through the media, clients or other outside sources. Clients should have been (and perhaps were) contacted next, in particular where employee/customer relationships were in place. It’s a lesson for all companies in such instances on the importance of proper strategy, planning, messaging and (in this case) technology-testing to ensure effective and empathetic communications for internal and external audiences alike.