Elon Musk recently took over the social media platform Twitter, and along with that came a load of issues. When Musk purchased Twitter, he laid off a bunch of employees immediately after. Workers were warned ahead of time, but being out of a job sucks for anyone.
What many are seeing as comical and a display of incompetence is the fact that Musk is now looking to rehire some of those people. Rehiring laid-off employees is actually very common and it happens a lot more often than you may think. The problem with this situation is that rehiring is happening WAY too soon.
Before we delve down that road, let’s discuss really quickly why rehiring is normal. Losing a job is unfortunate, but never out of the cards for anyone. Layoffs happen constantly for numerous reasons and many factors go into deciding who will be let go. The final decision often feels personal – maybe even like an attack. Usually, though, they aren’t.
Something essential to remember is that often, the person themselves isn’t being dropped – the position is. And when those positions are ready to be filled again, a company may invite you back. It’s a frustrating part of the job force.
Now, how did Musk manage to “f” this up? Manu predicted the Twitter layoffs would take months to go down but they didn’t. Many of the employees that were laid off and then asked to come back were allegedly given one hour to decide if they’d re-accept the position. Every software engineer reportedly said no. I mean, they’d been preparing for this moment, and a large number had new jobs lined up. Workers gave panicked responses because they were only given 60 minutes to make a huge life-altering decision after already being let go. What an emotional rollercoaster.
Is it a good idea to invite fear in your employees before they even get back? Think there may have been a better way to go about this? Some are calling his decision rash and sloppy. It’s clear that employees were fired before Musk even knew what their jobs were, which makes it obvious why workers are apprehensive.
Macie LaCau is a passionate writer, herbal educator, and dog enthusiast. She spends most of her time overthinking and watering her tiny tomatoes.
