During a Salesforce meeting described as disjointed, co-CEO Marc Benioff evaded questions from employees about plans for layoffs, sparking discontent in the company’s Slack channels.
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Business Insider reports that the meeting, which took place on Thursday, resulted in angry internal discussions among employees who felt rejected and ignored. Insider viewed screenshots of the chats and has more:
Staff took to a Slack channel dedicated to questions during the all-hands to point out that many questions had gone unanswered, according to screenshots viewed by Insider. Benioff first announced the plan for layoffs in an email on Wednesday, saying the cuts will happen “usually in the coming weeks.”
Insider quotes an employee as asking if Benioff was “harassing more than 47,600 employees right now by talking in circles and avoiding the topic.” Others wrote posts like “ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS” or “what are we even talking about?”
The employee sentiment was perhaps best expressed by a Slack user who suggested that for “future all-hands conversations, it would be nice to know what the intent of the conversation is.”
“I’m sure many of the tens of thousands of people in this conversation could get things done,” the commenter continued, “instead of listening to an unstructured conversation about the company…”
Anger about the nature of the Salesforce conversation did not escape management’s attention. According to Insider, “an executive apologized at a subsequent meeting.” The exec told anyone who hadn’t seen the meeting “according to a person present, don’t bother looking”.
The incident may indicate a lack of transparency and communication within the company, which Business Insider reports has already notified up to 1,000 employees of impending cuts — a move Insider notes.blinded many managers.”
