The COVID-19 pandemic

  Case 4-1 status, valued at well over a billion dollars with millions of venture-capital dollars funneled in over its short lifetime. As the business grew, Bosworth gradually turned the day-to-day operation of Westwood over to professional managers, including MBAs from top business schools. But the bulk of employees were young college graduates, eager to work at a high-flying startup but also significantly burdened by student debt. Even though at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many CEOs anticipated needing to make difficult decisions regarding their workforce, Bosworth was originally optimistic that no one would have to face being furloughed or fired: “You, the employees of Go Travel, are the most important assets that we have. Despite the difficult times this company now faces, you have my assurance that I will never ask any of you to leave for economic reasons.” CORPORATE COMMUNICATION AT GO TRAVEL The company relied on a small staff of communication professionals to handle its communication efforts. All of the various activities that could be decentralized (e.g., internal communications, investor relations) were housed in the appropriate functional areas. This organization developed naturally as the company grew to become one of the most popular luggage brands in the United States. The main outreaches to employees were annual meetings, where slide-heavy presentations from Bosworth and other top company executives would draw upwards of the entire employee workforce. Bosworth, as a young owner and CEO, enjoyed much attention from the press as a result of her meteoric rise in the business world. She relied on an outside consultant, Case 7-1 Go Travel Dan Cassidy, a 2017 graduate of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, was sitting in his apartment, having spent a long day on Zoom meetings. He had just signed out of a meeting with his boss, Catherine Callahan, the Vice President of Human Resources at Go Travel. “Dan, I know we’ve all been stressed about much of what is going on with COVID, but unfortunately we are going to have to let a decent amount of our team go,” she said. “I’m hoping that the CEO will buy my plan for voluntary severance and expedited vesting schedules for those who had taken a chance on working at a startup like ours.” Go Travel had never laid off anyone in the nearly 10 years of its existence. In fact, it had been considered a high-flying darling of Silicon Valley that had nowhere to go but up. The global pandemic, however, had changed that, and as the Director of Employee Relations, Dan would be responsible for telling employees about the new policy within the next couple of days. As he stared out his apartment window to the beautiful southern California hills, many thoughts were going through his head. How should he identify the issues involved for all employees? Should he get the people in corporate communication involved? Who would be the best person to release the information? What about communication with other Go Travel constituencies? And what would be the longterm effects of what would be reported in the media as a “major downsizing”? GO TRAVEL BACKGROUND Go Travel was started by Linda Bosworth, a brilliant UCLA graduate, following her graduation in 2010. With a vision for changing the travel experience in her head, Bosworth had built the firm up to unicorn Craig Stevens, to handle her own public relations. Stevens also had a tremendous amount of influence over the communications department at the company itself. The VP of Corporate Communication, Eric Ridgeway, was actually one of the several employees who would be affected by the current plan to trim the workforce. He had been hired early on as a favor to Bosworth’s father. Ridgeway had spent 25 years at a large rival to Go Travel before signing on at the company, and although he had a media background, he was still newer to selling to the primarily millennial consumer that Go Travel targeted. The problems associated with Ridgway made the communications effort more difficult for both Dan Cassidy and the outside counsel advising him through the process. THE VOLUNTARY SEVERANCE AND EXPEDITED VESTING PROGRAM The Although the CEO was very much against the programs that were about to be implemented, she had been convinced by both Callahan, the Head of Human Resources, and her Board of Directors that something had to be done immediately, or the company itself would be at risk. The way the programs would work, about half the employees were going to furloughed for an asyet decided period of time, and another 25 percent of employees would be let go. The intention was to only let the lowest-performing employees go, and thus, a product manager who had received less than excellent performance appraisals for two consecutive years would be a prime candidate for voluntary severance with limited benefits, whereas a manager approaching four years with the company would be offered severance with full vesting. Although both of these programs were “voluntary,” the supervisors responsible for identifying candidates were urged to get the weaker people to agree as soon as possible. COMMUNICATING ABOUT THE PLANS As Cassidy signed into work the following day, he saw that a meeting had been added to his calendar with his supervisor, Catherine Callahan, as well as Bosworth and Craig Stevens. “Well Dan, how are you going to pull this one off?” joked Bosworth. Cassidy responded, “Quite honestly, Linda, given your position on this issue, my feeling is that you need to get involved with the announcement tomorrow.” As the discussion progressed, however, it was obvious to Dan that he was the one that his boss and the head of the company wanted to take the heat. After two hours, Bosworth looked Dan squarely in the eye and said: “This was not my idea in the first place, but I know we have no choice but to adopt the voluntary severance packages for Go Travel. Unfortunately, I have conference calls with our investors all day tomorrow, so you and Catherine are going to have to take responsibility this time.” Before Dan could fully digest what Bosworth had told him, he was distracted by a Wall Street Journal notification about another tech company that had botched their COVID-19 workforce plan. He could not help but wonder if he, too, would become the focus of such an article if he mismanaged the difficult conversations ahead. CASE QUESTIONS 3. What advice would you give Cassidy about how communications to employees are structured at Go Travel?