This article is from Baijia:Blue Hole New Consumption, title map from: Visual China
Blue hole new consumer report, on the evening of November 21, according to foreign media business insider Inside Insider, after the US federal investigation Juul, Juul just fired 650 employees. The affected employees described to the media how to handle and see the results.
Core Tips:
1, Juul Labs has just fired 650 employees, accounting for 16% of the global workforce, and plans to cut costs by $1 billion next year, as the troubled e-cigarette maker will face more and more Regulatory review and federal investigation.
2. Former employees said that although many people first learned about layoffs from news reports, others were not surprised because the company’s morale has been depressed for several months.
3. “Business Insider” talked with Juul’s six former employees who described how layoffs are reduced and how they think layoffs reflect the suppression of explosive growth, lack of proper business processes and mismanagement.
The following is the full text:
Until this summer, Juul Labs has been actively recruiting talent so that new employees often flock to the kitchens of their San Francisco headquarters.
Several former employees told Business Insider that the e-cigarette company said it added an average of 300 employees a month, including adding 30 new employees a week in some US offices.
It already accounts for nearly 75% of the US e-cigarette market, and after receiving the investment of tobacco giant Altria (Altria) last year With a market capitalization of $38 billion, Altria is preparing for future adult smokers seeking cigarette substitutes.
But in the past week, as the company announced that it has laid off 650 employees (16% of global employees), And plans to cut costs by $1 billion next year, and many of its offices in the United States have been emptied.
The layoff was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on November 12th and was part of a broader reorganization of Juul. In the face of regulatory review and federal investigations, the restructuring was forced to cut expansion and clean up. Management, its valuation has recently been cut by more than a third.
It has been sued by New York and California, alleging that it is targeting teenagers, failing to warn that its products contain nicotine, and that its products are safer than cigarettes. The government warned against the use of e-cigarettes because the diseases associated with e-cigarettes are increasing, although many of them involve e-cigarette THC products, and Juul does not sell such products.
“Business Insider” interviewed six former employees of Juul who said they were fired last week. They say layoffs reflect the company’s deeper problems, namely, explosive growth, stagnation, lack of proper business processes and poor management.
Many people first learned about layoffs from news reports
The bad news for laid-off employees comes in the form of company-wide emails from Juul’s new CEO, KC Crosthwaite, and CEO Monika Fahlbusch.
This email has been taken by Business Insider checks and indicates that the company will notify affected people one by one.
The e-mail states that it complies with the Workers’ Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires employers with 100 or more employees to notify 60 days prior to mass layoffs, and Juul pays The severance payment is beyond the law.
One representative said that we realized that it was particularly difficult for retired employees to reorganize the company. This is why Juul Labs went beyond the routine to support team members during the termination of the contract.
The laid-off employees confirm with Business Insider that they will receive a salary until January 17th and receive the bonus they are eligible to receive.
A former employee said that they are making every effort to ensure that they are not guilty and will not be hit by other lawsuits.
Several former employees told Business Insider that Crosthwaite and Fahlbusch’s emails were one of the few formal forms of communication for company layoffs.
When Juul’s first chief marketing officer, Craig Bromers (Crosthwaite), some people saw these when they suspended all advertising, printing and digital product advertising businesses in the United States. Text.
Another former employee said that morale was low.
Others said that people did not know the arrival of layoffs until the Wall Street Journal reported in October that Juul plans to lay off 10% to 15% this year, while middle managers are in the dark.
A source said that the Wall Street Journal announced that layoffs would be bad. When KC took over, he did not attend the town hall meeting or talk to the company unless they drove Kevin out of the company.
Kevin Burns(Kevin Burns) is the former CEO of Juul before Crosthwaite.
OtherA source said that employees raised concerns at the company’s plenary meeting, but some rejected it.
A former San Francisco employee said that if you receive a calendar invitation, it means you are about to go out.
A company spokesperson said that since the end of September, this topic has been communicated within the company.
Some teams are cut by up to 40%
A company spokesperson said that Juul’s marketing team was the hardest hit, but sources said the employees of the business, sales and talent teams were also affected.
The source said that some teams cut as much as 40%, and layoffs affected San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Austin, Texas. According to a spreadsheet shared by Google, Juul employees are circulating to share work opportunities.
Although the process has ended in North America, layoffs are still taking place in other parts of the world.
Some former employees say Juul is growing too fast
For former employees who spoke with Business Insider, layoffs are a sign of deeper problems for the company. One of them said that Juul was expanding too fast to meet explosive demand, which led to increased pain.
For example, according to analyst estimates, Juul increased from about 225 employees to about 1,500 in 2018, and sales have more than tripled. The two former employees recalled that the problem had developed and that multiple teams were working on the same project and there was no communication between them.
A former middle-level employee said that people are only told to recruit, and rarely consider organizational responsibility. You have duplicates and tripartite teams doing the same thing. The overall lack of understanding of basic business processes, the excuse is always: Well, we run so fast that we don’t have time.
Previous staff described luxury treatment
The former staff also criticized what they thought was too high.welfare. Several former staff members said that employees can enjoy lunch and juice for free, which is a type of benefits commonly enjoyed by Silicon Valley startups.
But a former employee also said that the company requires all employees on business trips to take first class.
Juul disagreed, saying that employees can only book senior seats for long-haul flights, otherwise they must be economical. Business Insider cannot confirm what can be used for long flights.
The source said that the company was also in September in Las Vegas, Bellagio (Bellagio) held a three-day retreat for its sales organization and an open-air bar. The company did not respond to the matter.
Some people think the company has not fulfilled its mission
Some former employees said they believe Juul’s mission is to help smokers get rid of traditional cigarettes after joining the company.
But they say they distrust the middle and senior management positions because they see people with regulatory and compliance experience from tobacco and liquor companies, such as Gary Ross, vice president of marketing, and the US Senior Vice President.
The source said that everyone agrees that cigarettes are harmful, and that if people can use a product to quit, it would be a good thing. However, many people who run Juul come from tobacco and alcohol brands such as Beam Suntory and Constellation, they just put it there without considering the consequences.
There are other stumbling blocks. The company’s former employees said the company plans to open its own retail store and e-cigarette vending machine, but the plan was put on hold. In September, Juul stopped selling in China in just two days after listing in China (the world’s largest tobacco market).
A Juul representative said that the company did not have a clear plan to open a store in the US, and indeed in other countries (including Canada and South Korea) has a store.
Juul faces regulatory issues
In other cases, Juul’s rapid development ambition runs counter to regulation.
After the states, including Michigan and Massachusetts, restricted sales in recent months, Juul was forced to withdraw some of the products from the 100,000 stores it sold. According to sources, it is difficult to remove the product from the shelf due to the incorrect sequence of the product fixtures.
The Juul representative said that the company was able to respond quickly to these new regulations without any accidents.
Juul’s marketing has been scrutinized, The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the company’s marketing practices, such as the use of social media influential people and allegations against minors.
Some former employees said they thought Juul didn’t think much about how their products affected people.
One source said that if you give a teenager a device-like device that is similar to a flash drive driven by an addictive substance, and smells like a mango, it will be attracted. When it raised money from people trying to fight it, it lost its mission.
What is the next step for Juul
A number of sources said that a common complaint among laid-off Juul employees was that there was no clear reason to decide who would be laid off, and layoffs severely hit junior staff.
A former employee said that the person who should let go is the one who made the mistake, but the person who made the wrong decision was not held accountable.
The company said that in fact, about 15% of vice presidents were laid off as part of layoffs. Despite the layoffs, some senior executives have recently left, including Chief Marketing Officer Brommers (Brommers). Chief financialOfficer Tim Danaher; Senior Vice President of Advanced Technology David Foster and Chief Executive Officer Ashley Gould.
With this week’s global layoffs, the company said it is turning its attention to developing its product team as it is exploring new technologies to combat the use of minors.
Crosthwaite said in a statement that as the e-cigarette category undergoes the necessary resets, this reorganization will help Juul Labs focus on reducing the use of minors, investing in scientific research and creating new technologies while Operating licenses in the US and worldwide.
At the same time, hundreds of laid-off workers are working hard to meet their new reality.
A source said that we know that it is coming, but it is not easy to accept, it feels really bad.
This article is from Baijia:Blue Hole New Consumption