Big Tech wants to bring back some of the workers it laid off. The decision might come down to how a company handled the layoffs.
It's not the call you'd expect to get: The company that laid you off wants you back.
Do you go? It's a question that many of us might think we know the answer to: Hell, no! Yet, for some workers, the calculus is more complex.
Companies like Meta, the parent of Facebook, and Salesforce are bringing back some of the workers they let go. Big Tech is hungry for people with skills in areas such as artificial intelligence. Yet, like romantic breakups, whether one-time employees agree to try again will have a lot to do with how things ended.
Companies that handled layoffs poorly are likely to have a harder time convincing ex workers to go back, Sandra Sucher, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School who's studied layoffs, said. In some cases where the layoffs were conducted reasonably well, a return might be something former workers would consider.
"If you want me back, you value me," Sucher told Insider. Still, former workers will want to know how they can rebuild their careers at an organization, she said. "What is my path going forward? Not just for right now."
We want you back
The renewed demand is an about-face from the start of the year, when many Silicon Valley giants were culling staffers after saying they'd taken on too many people during the pandemic. So far this year, tech companies have slashed about 350,000 workers, according to Trueup.io., the tech jobs site. But the cuts peaked in January.
Whether to return is a question some former Salesforce workers are likely asking. The company plans to hire some 3,000 employees after cutting 10% of its workforce at the start of the year. Salesforce told Bloomberg it expects to hire in areas like sales, engineering, and data cloud product teams — and said the new workers will help grow the company's AI business to draw further investments.
CEO Marc Benioff is calling on former workers who landed elsewhere, not just those who might have been laid off, to consider coming back. Salesforce recently held an event to court alums where it handed out stuffed toys with "boomerang" shirts to about 50 former execs.
But for the workers who were laid off — and who didn't leave to take another job — there might still be some hard feelings over how Salesforce handled the separations. Some workers criticized how the company communicated the cuts. The layoffs also seemed to fly in the face of the culture the cloud software company had built. Salesforce execs, and Benioff in particular, have over the years encouraged workers to view their colleagues and the company itself as "Ohana," a Hawaiian term referring to family.
Earlier this year, the company — under pressure from activist investors to boost growth and margins — said it would step up its focus on profitability and efficiency. The implication was that focus would trump the company's "Ohana" philosophy.
Things to ask yourself before you return
Sucher said for some workers, the fact that the company knows you — and you know it — could mean it's worth considering a return.
She said workers considering returning to a former employer might ask themselves questions such as: Why was I laid off? What's changed that you need me now? Why should I trust you again?
The decisions, in many cases, might not be easy. For some workers, there will be difficulty rebuilding the level of trust they once had.
"There'll be a part of me that is kind of looking at the organization and not trusting it in some very fundamental way," Sucher said.
One Reddit user, in late July, asked for advice on whether to return to a former employer that had laid the person off only to turn around weeks later and offer a management position in a different division.
The person, who'd already started another, less-lucrative job, faced a dilemma: "The company laid me off not too long ago so I obviously have reservations," the user wrote. The advice varied to return but keep looking, don't return, or demand more pay to return.
Another user wrote about getting a call from a department head who'd both hired and laid off this person asking if there was any interest in returning. "This was honestly the last thing I expected," the person wrote.
Workers who do go back are likely to remain guarded
Of course, this hot-cold approach to workers isn't new for those in industries like hospitality. At the onset of the pandemic, for example, many restaurant workers got laid off. When lockdowns eased, employers scrambled to fill open roles because those workers wanted better working conditions.
Now it's tech workers' turn. Some might demand better pay to go back, while others could be accustomed to the idea that there's little they could do to protect against sizable job cuts. Job security will remain a visible consideration though: On Trueup.io, alongside job listings for high-profile companies like Amazon and Meta, is a number showing how many days it's been since there have been layoffs at the employer.
It's possible that strong demand will pull some workers back. Broadly, there is robust appetite for people with AI skills. On LinkedIn, the number of global English-language job postings that mention artificial intelligence technologies is up 21 times from November 2022, when ChatGPT debuted, a LinkedIn spokesperson said in an email to Insider.
Sucher said those workers who do decide to give it another go with a former employer are likely going to want to know what a company's strategy is so that it doesn't find itself once again cutting staff.
She said, ultimately, those who do return after layoff will likely view the organization differently. "This has lasting effects on how people feel about security," Sucher said. "It destabilizes their assumption that if I do a good job, I get to keep my job."
It's not an awkward spot, it's a spot where you now know your bargaining power and you're going to make them pay literally for what they've put you through. They need the employees, so the employees can dictate their demands if they negotiate wisely. If these companies are willing to screw you over, then you should be willing to drill them for oil when you get the chance. Screw them. Hard.
This is the best job market in my lifetime. This must have been what it was like for boomers when they were younger. The economy continues to grow, and at the same time, boomers and gen x continue to retire in ever greater numbers. Demand for labour is sky high. The only risk is leaders jacking up immigration to suppress wages and worker bargaining power.
I would bet most of the employees they want aren’t the ones they let go, but probably a lot more who went somewhere else of their own volition.
Lots of good employees leave because even with a great boss, if your boss isn’t getting promoted, you might not have a path for promotion without lateraling into something you don’t like, with new people and new relationships who might be worse.
If you’re going to do all that, you might just do it in a new company.
It’s always easier for companies to richly reward new hires vs existing employees.
I'll be honest with you, I've stayed at some bad jobs because of great bosses. As long as pay keeps increasing, promotions are an easy thing to not care about. But the second my boss sucks, or my value isn't appreciated, I start looking for a new job. At my previous employer, I stuck around for 18 months to try to help guide a new management team that absolutely sucked. They didn't figure it out, so I'm gone. But I had been with that company for 6 years through good and bad because previous leaders were fantastic.
“If you want me back, you value me,” Sucher told Insider.
Wow, I know business schools are filled with out of touch simps for the ownership class, but I still wasn't prepared for this line.
Like, what was the message that was sent with the layoff? And how does it colour the interpretation of everything else? What good is being "valued" by the ownership class today when it means absolutely nothing for you tomorrow?
It speaks volumes, really, that she thinks being valued by a business - whose goals are explicitly to siphon wealth that workers create into the hands of owners - is something we should feel good about.
On January 5, the day after billionaire Marc Benioff fired 8,000 people, he was 15 minutes late for a company-wide town-hall meeting at Salesforce, the business software giant he founded 24 years ago. Then he made a joke: “Did I miss something?”
What do you mean that's mercenary? That's just unavoidable circumstances. Since the company is a family, you want to take care of your family members, right?
If I was laid off by a company I wouldn't go back unless I had no other choice. If a company didn't see your value previously and now it supposedly does, what is to say it will not change again in the future and fire you again? A lot of companies do a last-in first-out approach and are cyclical about hiring and firing to please shareholders. That's where these tech companies are at now.
Also who wants the potential of a CV where you were laid off twice by the same company? It'd be like them taking your CV and wiping their arse with it before handing to back to you as security escorts you out of the building.
I know what you mean, but it would depend on my current situation. Assuming I've had to find another job with short notice (and I'm still in my probation period) it could be a great opportunity to leverage a massive pay increase, then spend the next year planning a proper move.
I wouldn't list it as separate employment on my CV, unless I knew it was going to be scrutinised, in which case, it's easily explained and reflects pretty well - they wanted me back.
I always thought if you were "laid off" it was the company's intention to maybe bring you back someday, if they got busy again or something. Whereas when you got "fired" you were done done.
Is "laid off" just the polite way to say "fired" now?
“Laid off” has always been a euphemism for “fired.”
Not in communities where seasonal labour is a significant part of the local economy. There, 'laid off' often comes with the implicit "temporary" modifier, while 'fired' does not. And while tech work is not usually seasonal employment, if you grew up in an area where seasonal employment is common, the distinction kind of stick with you.
“A company may lay off an employee when it doesn't have the resources to retain them, while a company may fire an employee who isn't meeting the company's expectations.”
Sure, they both suck because they both result in you not having a job anymore. However, if you are fired, then this looks worse when you’re looking for your next job. Potential employers may want to know why you were fired, and will likely view you as a risk.
Whereas, being laid off doesn’t carry the same negative impact to your reputation that being fired does. You haven’t done anything wrong to get laid off.
And in some countries, getting laid off (AKA made redundant) means that the company has to provide a payout, which is proportional to your length of service. You wouldn’t get this if you have been fired for wrongdoing.
Salesforce told Bloomberg it expects to hire in areas like sales, engineering, and data cloud product teams — and said the new workers will help grow the company's AI business to draw further investments.
Salesforce execs, and Benioff in particular, have over the years encouraged workers to view their colleagues and the company itself as "Ohana," a Hawaiian term referring to family.
Earlier this year, the company — under pressure from activist investors to boost growth and margins — said it would step up its focus on profitability and efficiency.
One Reddit user, in late July, asked for advice on whether to return to a former employer that had laid the person off only to turn around weeks later and offer a management position in a different division.
The person, who'd already started another, less-lucrative job, faced a dilemma: "The company laid me off not too long ago so I obviously have reservations," the user wrote.
Sucher said those workers who do decide to give it another go with a former employer are likely going to want to know what a company's strategy is so that it doesn't find itself once again cutting staff.
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If I were laid off with the condition of “hey, we can’t afford you right now but we want to bring you back when we can…” and I earn more at one of those places, I’ll go back. Fuck it.