Sometimes the truth is even more disturbing than the rumors. Here at CRL, we can’t point to a clearer case of organizational disrespect for employees, directly fostered by the leadership, than the stunning story of the troubled mortgage company Better.com and its now infamous CEO Vishal Garg. You can read all about it in the excellent Fast Company article via the link provided below.
But first, here’s our take on it…
Amongst all the despicable and disrespectful behaviors, the mass-firing over a Zoom call, underpayments of salaries and severance, and disparaging, unfounded public remarks by Garg about employees stealing from his company, two serious concerns stand out…
Better.com was repeatedly ranked among the “best small and medium-sized businesses to work for,” by Fortune. Wait, what? How could that be?
How, indeed. Because in our work, we’ve found that disrespectful leaders don’t just go bad overnight like some exotic fruit left out on the kitchen counter. They’ve more than likely behaved disrespectfully for a very long time but were never called on it by their colleagues or boards or investors.
Instead, because leaders like Garg were “large and in charge,” kicked-butt-and-took-names and drove hyper-rapid growth while charming the right people (the folks with deep pockets), their ugly behaviors, comments, and attitudes toward their employees (and others) were overlooked or chalked up as “just part of the package.”
How Fortune and its “Best-Places-to-Work” evaluators missed this isn’t that much of a mystery: when things are going great and growth is exponential while the company “seems” to be engaging in more than performative DE&I efforts, everyone thinks, ‘what a great place to work!’ and says so to others and in surveys. It’s only in hindsight, after the proverbial stuff has hit the fan, do employees recall all the disrespectful behaviors and language engaged in by leadership.
This isn’t unusual, in fact, our experience tells us that it’s more common than not. What is unusual is that the world – and perhaps more importantly, the media – is finally starting to wake up to the fact that disrespectful, toxic work environments are simply bad for business. It’s been a long time coming, and we don’t want to be the ones to say, “generally speaking, we told you so,” but we will anyway.
The second serious concern highlighted by the Better.com story is a uniquely American problem: the fact that so many pregnant and seriously ill Better.com employees who were so unceremoniously laid off also stood to lose their health insurance very rapidly, some within a matter of 60 days. It took repeated complaining by current and former employees to leadership and on social media for the company to change this policy, and even then, only on a case by case basis.
How is it good for any company to have current and former employees – especially those who are pregnant or battling long-term illnesses – freaking out about their health insurance, worrying if they’ll be able to find another job in time to avoid having to fork out thousands of dollars in premiums and medical expenses?
But again, despite Obamacare and the revisions of the law, this is just the American way, where quality health insurance and care are merely privileges that can disappear overnight, rather than guaranteed rights as they are in so many other so-called, “developed nations.”
At the end of the day, the Better.com story is, sadly, just one among many. It just happened to get more press than most. Will our business leaders really learn from this dark true-to-life fable about the cost of toxic work environments (according to MIT), the biggest driver of the “Great Resignation,” or will they simply carry on as usual thinking, ‘that won’t happen to us.’
Read all about it in Fast Company.
