Better.com floats voluntary resignations after mass layoffs

Voluntary separation plans offered to some workers

Better.com CEO Vishal Garg (Getty Images, iStock/Photo Illustration by Steven Dilakian for The Real Deal)
Better.com CEO Vishal Garg (Getty Images, iStock/Photo Illustration by Steven Dilakian for The Real Deal)

Better.com is trying to convince some of its employees that they may be better off elsewhere.

The beleaguered online mortgage startup offered some corporate and product development and engineering employees voluntary separation plans, a person familiar told Bloomberg. Under the plan announced at a town hall meeting, employees could be entitled to as much as 60 days of severance and health insurance.

The offers will only be on the table for a limited period of time. Employees offered the plan who are under 40 years old have only seven days to accept the offer, while those 40 and older will have 21 days to consider.

The voluntary separation plans were confirmed to Bloomberg by a spokesperson for the company.

The offers come after a tumultuous few months for the company, which was founded in 2016 and describes itself as a “digital-first homeownership company” offering mortgage, title and homeowners insurance services.

Last month, the New York-based company confirmed it was laying off 3,000 workers in the United States and India, reducing its headcount by more than a third. Some staff members reportedly learned of the cuts before they were announced after the company accidentally rolled out severance payments prematurely.

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CEO Vishal Garg took a leave of absence in December after firing more than 900 employees over Zoom and accusing some in an anonymous online post of being unproductive and stealing from the company.

Garg’s handling of those layoffs triggered an internal review and led to the resignations of several executives, including the company’s vice president of communications and its heads of marketing and public relations.

The chief executive returned to his post in January after Kevin Ryan took the reins in an interim capacity.

[Bloomberg] — Holden Walter-Warner