When You Announce Layoffs Right Before Christmas (Insider Comms™ From Etsy)

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Ten days before Christmas Etsy laid off 11% of its workforce, about 225 employees including, apparently, the head of HR. My guess is this gift didn’t come wrapped in antique paper with a handwritten note thanking the recipient.

• The number of wintry and Christmasy metaphors we can use in this edition of Insider Comms is as long as Santa’s naughty list. The CEO as Grinch or Ebenezer Scrooge. The frostiness of it all. The lump of coal deposited into handmade stockings hung by the chimney with care.

• You know you’re delivering shitty news when you need to bury it in a mound of snow (1,770 words).¹ Compare it to the layoff notes at Alexa ($) and LinkedIn ($) that are each, weirdly, 349 words long.

• (Ugh. Can you imagine being the comms pro who had to hit send on this one? Awful.)

Despite the acknowledgment from Etsy CEO Josh Silverman that the makers’ marketplace has more than doubled since 2019, the company is now “operating in a very challenging macro and competitive environment.” Hence, the drastic cuts.

Silverman’s memo to employees, which was apparently sent right after a town hall, is lengthy because it covers a lot of ground, starting with a “how we got here” section, where Silverman introduces the concept of “Vital Few” projects and initiatives the company will focus on to increase sales.

• The Vital Few—mentioned two more times—go undefined, a miss.

• This is followed by a peek at “how we made this decision,” which vaguely explains how laid-off employees were identified and outlines a few org changes.

Silverman closes the memo with a section called “How we will move forward, together.” A poor choice of words considering an accurate subtitle would be “How we will move forward, together, minus 225 of you.”

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I’m snarkier than usual with this note because of the timing. I understand that business gotta do what business gotta do, but 10 days before Christmas? I can’t take Silverman seriously when he says, “Please know we have taken a deeply thoughtful approach to try to be as empathetic and human as possible in this moment.” You honestly couldn’t wait until after the holidays to cast a pall over your workforce, 89% of whom are now adding “Thank god I still have a job” to their dinner prayers?

• It’s especially irksome knowing that Silverman’s compensation is $16 million, not including a $40 million package he received in 2021.

Etsy’s CEO has me all bah-humbug. I apologize for sharing such negativity this holiday season. This is very much one of the “ugly” in the good, bad, and ugly of the Insider Comms series.

Here’s the memo.