Around 900 employees of a digital mortgage company were laid off in an abrupt three-minute group Zoom call weeks before Christmas. “I come to you with not great news. We are laying off about 15 percent of the company for a number of reasons — the market efficiency and performances, and productivity,” CEO Vishal Garg said at the beginning of the meeting on Wednesday, December 1. “If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off,” Garg continued. “Your employment here is terminated effective immediately.” The former employees will receive around a month’s pay and three months’ worth of benefits, all of which would be outlined in an email from human resources sent to their personal email addresses. He told the staff that letting them go was a “challenging” decision but ” hopes to be stronger.” It was his second time in his career to terminate workers.

An employee from the Zoom call shared that Garg’s process of terminating hundreds of people was “jarring“. “It seemed like he could have had a better way to go about it,” he said. “Maybe in individual rooms with HR people.” The corporation received a $750 million cash infusion from its backers the day prior to the layoffs. The cash advance and layoffs were presented as a company win by Kevin Ryan, the company’s chief financial officer. According to the laid-off employee, the termination was a sign that the organization needed “capital urgently.”