Twitter lost another major portion of its workforce after it demanded its employees agree to its rigorous working hours or leave with a severance amount. New chief Elon Musk is adamant about making Twitter a more profitable business and in this process, he has been making multiple changes at the company. After scrapping its forever work-from-home policy, Musk next targeted the working hours of the employees telling them to spend at least 40 hours per week in the office.
Things went a little too far for the employees when on Thursday Musk dropped an email demanding a commitment to extreme working hours from employees and it had to be responded to by 3:30 PM IST on the same day. The email included a FAQ document that had to be signed by employees who agree to serve “long hours at high intensity” at Twitter adding that those who don’t click yes will be confirming their decision to resign.
The office’s chat group was soon seen overflowing with farewell and goodbye messages along with salute emojis. Officials in hundreds informed of their exit with severance pay.
Twitter later sent an email informing that it was shutting its offices for staff and disabling office badge access until November 21. While the exact number of employees resigning is unknown, reports have it that it could be in a hundred with the company losing some of its old, seasoned and trustworthy employees.
Many online users started speculating if Twitter would be shut down forever. One of the users commented on whether Twitter was going to run on itself after the mass exodus. The tweet which has over 26,000 likes was soon noticed by Musk who replied “The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.”
According to a Guardian report, Musk wasn’t expecting the number of employees who would refuse to stay and leave with severance pay. Reportedly, the officials leaving this time include many engineers responsible for fixing bugs and service outages. The same report states that Musk did not anticipate the number of people who would refuse to stay and upon sensing early signs relaxed the return to office rule which he had announced a week ago. Reportedly, he told employees on Thursday that they would be allowed to work remotely if their managers confirmed their “excellent contribution”. Musk was also said to be meeting some top executives convincing them to stay.
Musk slashed Twitter’s workforce by almost 50 per cent hours soon after he took over the company as its new CEO. While the exact numbers are unknown, the latest exits are said to trim down the headcount by almost 88 per cent at the company.
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