While many (especially males) will agree that Marissa Mayer has a nice smile, her personality is more a subject of debate….. It’s being reported that embattled Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, promised “no layoffs this week” during a company “FYI Friday” gathering earlier this month. The CEO is already on the hot seat this year amid frustrations over the slow pace of turn-around at the tech giant.
With one bad joke, Mayer shows herself to be out of touch?
Working for Yahoo, can’t be a lot of fun these days. Working for an out of touch boss whose job is safe or certainly comes with a golden parachute is not a grand reassurance if you’re worried about your own job.
So, you’re a Yahoo employed summoned to a company-wide meeting do you really want a bad joke from your boss, a boss that has just returned from a maternity leave?
According to The New York Post, Mayer responded to a question from an employee saying there will be no layoffs…..this week.
“She said there are going to be no layoffs ‘this week,’ and many of the employees laughed at her,” said a Yahoo employee to The New York Post on the condition of anonymity.
“This is the reason employee morale is so low,” the source added.
We don’t comment on rumors or speculation,” a Yahoo! spokeswoman told the Post on Monday before they published the piece detailing the comments.
Mayer’s every word can scare already scared Yahoo employees
One of Marissa Mayer’s first actions as CEO was to do away with Yahoo’s telecommuting workers in a move that quickly lowered company morale especially among women working from home with children. Mayer, who has children of her own, has a private nursery right next to her office, something others certainly have the luxury of claiming.
Right now morale at Yahoo is apparently at an all-time low with good reason. Mayer’s jokes aside, it’s largely believed that Yahoo will begin making large cuts in its workforce imminently.
Within a few days after the “FYI Friday” in question, Business Insider reported that Yahoo is planning on cutting at least 10% of its roughly 9,000 employees. Other insiders believe that number is grossly understated by half or more.
Mayer is under pressure to really impress investors with a turnaround strategy during a quarterly earnings call next week. But some investors and the activist hedge funds led by Starboard Value LP aren’t interested in anything less than Mayer’s dismissal and sale of Yahoo’s core business.
“By definition, their plan can’t be good enough if it’s anything short of, ‘We’re hiring bankers to explore selling the core business,’” a source close to Starboard said.
In late December, SpringOwl Asset Management called for the cutting of 9,000 jobs.
And Mayer is making jokes about job cuts with employees? Yikes.
