Grindr has lost about 45% of its staff as it enforces a strict return-to-office policy that was introduced after a majority of employees announced a plan to unionize.

About 80 of the 178 employees at the LGBTQ+ dating app company resigned after the company in August mandated that workers return to work in person two days a week at assigned “hub” offices or be fired, the Communications Workers of America said in a statement Wednesday.

love seeing companies going full mask off now — not even trying to sell the ‘collaborative environment’ bile, it’s purely punitive

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    1001 year ago

    This should honestly be the top comment, most companies appear to be using RTO as a means of doing mass layoffs without the negative PR hit.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      451 year ago

      Exactly right - this is a thinly veiled excuse for a planned large scale workforce reduction sidestepping some of the normal repercussions.

      What I find most interesting here is that WFH is essentially a benefit (a big one) at this point, and they just eliminated a huge benefit. That usually has the effect of causing some of your greatest talent to walk - and leaving behind those people who either don’t care about the benefit (there may be some, but I think this number is small) or don’t immediately have the hireability to resign and go for greener pastures.

      The tradeoff for grindr is that it’ll make them temporarily look better on paper, but the loss of talent will probably hurt them in the long run. If there’s one thing that seems to be true of modern capitalism, it’s that companies are more than willing to fuck their futures over some perceived short term gains.

      Grindr isn’t the only company doing this. I’ll be interested to see how this works out for all the employers using this same tactic.

      • @_number8_OP
        link
        321 year ago

        how did we get to the point where a gay hookup app is doing evil corporate schemes and attrition

        • @CarbonatedPastaSauce
          link
          English
          251 year ago

          I’ll give you a hint, the first three letters of the answer are MBA.

        • Pseu
          link
          fedilink
          161 year ago

          Because once the firm is big enough where the decision-maker doesn’t personally know the people they’re laying off, it almost immediately turns into this. The severance pay and unemployment of 80 software developers is millions of dollars, enough for even people who are normal and nice to the people they know to look the other way and say it was for the good of the company.

        • @Touching_Grass
          link
          -241 year ago

          How did we get to a point where people online claim a company is evil?

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            16
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            How did we get to a point where people started becoming anti-employee corporate apologists?

            • the post of tom joad
              link
              fedilink
              5
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              It’s cool tho. they let us know we should block them now cuz with a take that bad there’s no chance they’ll ever have a comment worthy of our sight

          • @Duamerthrax
            link
            61 year ago

            “online”? People have been calling, and rightfully so, many companies for a very long time.

          • Flying Squid
            link
            31 year ago

            Let me guess- corporations are people.

                • @Touching_Grass
                  link
                  -4
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  If you read it. It isn’t saying corporations/business are people. It is saying they are owned by people and people have rights that cannot be violated.

                  People have rights and a business inherits the rights of the people who work within and own it. Just think about what it would mean otherwise. A bank or hospital holds countless private information of anyone who uses them. Any business does, as they all hold private information of clients and employees. That information by extension has a right to certain things like privacy. The government or others cannot just force their way in when they want to get information they want.

                  That isn’t because businesses are people. Its because businesses are created and owned by people. That’s all that law is saying and it gets twisted every time.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen
        link
        fedilink
        English
        81 year ago

        Right. This produces the opposite result of what a layoff usually obtains, retaining talented key personnel while cutting the chaff. That’s why I’m not sure layoffs were the actual goal.

        • @jantin
          link
          61 year ago

          back to the comments above: the management knows not the people who do the actual work. They can’t immediately tell if the Chris who left was carrying his team or was the worst slacker in the company. They’ll learn after they audit the remaining workforce and see The Spreadsheet say the people who remained are bottom performers (pun probably intended) but it’ll be too late - the talent is gone, the trust is broken. Whether different companies learn from each others’ mistakes is a mystery to me, apparently the global conspiracy of billionaire CEOs is not as robust as I expected (/s)

    • @_number8_OP
      link
      231 year ago

      RTO itself isn’t negative PR?

      • @Dashi
        link
        101 year ago

        Less negative than ‘Grindr lays off half its staff due to economic troubles’

      • Alien Nathan Edward
        link
        fedilink
        91 year ago

        Depends on your audience. Potential employees will hate RTO and fear bad financial news, customers likely won’t care about either, shareholders don’t really care about RTO but will jump ship with bad financial news