Is Tesla Our Canary In The Coal Mine?
“If the world's largest EV company issues warnings about jobs and the economy, investors should reconsider their forecasts on margins and top-line growth”, said last week Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas .
The auto sector was hit two years ago by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced plant closures. That closure then played a role in the semiconductor chip shortage that further hampered vehicle production.
Now, supply chain bottlenecks, exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, have pulled sales down. U.S. new car sales in May came in at a weak annualized rate of 12.7 million. That's a far cry from the glory days of 17 million (2019)… But these problems are mostly on the supply side, while inflation is a threat to demand…
We love to hate Musk, as much genius as provocative troublemaker.
Over the years, we've learned to be wary of him. First from his fans when he announced in the spring of 2019 the deployment within a year of a million autonomous cars that would act as cabs at costs far lower than those of industry giants Uber and Lyft.... Have you ever passed one on the street?
Twitter employees are also very suspicious when Musk speaks. On May 13, he announced that he was suspending the buyout process for the social network, saying he was waiting for more details on the proportion of fake accounts. But Musk wasn't unaware: in his takeover plan, he already said he wanted to put an end to spam - those polluting messages often sent by fake automated accounts. One could say that this CEO is the best (or worst) troll... except that today, the annoyance and concern is with Tesla employees themselves. Within 48 hours, Musk took a hard line against his employees working from home. "Working remotely is no longer acceptable" he said employees must spend a minimum of 40 hours a week in the office, or else "leave Tesla." Forget the hybrid work demanded by a majority of employees and HR today...
This was followed by a very "SUPER BAD FEELING" about the economy to justify that he was considering a reduction of about 10% of his workforce. Elon Musk's management brutality is legendary, and the famous "you're fired" line from Donald Trump on "The Apprentice" fits him so well. A slowdown while the manufacturer had hired tens of thousands of employees in 2021 ... governing is certainly adapting but it is also predicting. For many, while the components crisis started more than a year ago, the current context offers Musk the opportunity to lower his cost base in an inflationary context.
Speak Up 📣 Never Stop Hiring Talented People
After 2 years complaining about a massive talent shortage, many tech companies discovered they had been wrong all along ! It turns out they had, in fact, been over-hiring, and feeding a speculative talent bubble.
While companies undergoing layoffs is nothing new, what’s surprising is to see so many companies forget (or ditch) key lessons of the past fifteen years: never stop recruiting, and always be employer-brand-ing. Why are the brilliant HR teams leading these companies letting this happen? Let’s look into it.
The game changed when markets turned in Q1. Many visible scale-ups, in the US and abroad, announced layoffs over the past few months. Last week, Coinbase announced a hiring freeze, and even took the unprecedented step of rescinding offers to new employees (as did Twitter). The worst hit verticals are also the ones with the most speculative business models, who had been greedy with their valuations in the era of easy money. Quick commerce and fintech (particularly crypto) startups were among the hardest hit by the layoffs. What goes up must come down…
Undoubtedly, many of the companies are finding themselves in a tricky spot and panicking their way out of it. How else would you explain fumbling layoffs this bad, between horrific Zoom announcements at Better.com and a bungled process at Klarna?
Read the rest of Florent's post The new talent wars 👈
Data 📊 The “Interruption-Gap” Has Sharply Widened
Dear remote-workers: have you been interrupted a lot lately? Ah, the joys of remote working… No commute. No colleagues to interrupt you. But is it really that easy?
The sharp increase in remote working practices seems to be lasting post-covid.
But new research by University Professor Nora Hadjar on nearly 250 employees showed that women pay a disproportionate price for it: they keep being interrupted at work.
➡️ Although women already reported higher levels of interruption than men pre-pandemic, the “interruption-gap” has sharply widened.
➡️ The increase was widespread across all kinds of interruptions.
Family and childcare related for one. But women are also more likely to be interrupted by colleagues and supervisors than their male counterparts, even when working from home. So, what can employers do to help?
It would seem that Virginia Woolf’s famous book A room of one’s own does hold some answers. Having a dedicated home office seemed to be a mitigating factor, meaning that employers taking steps to help their employees set up such a space.
Corporate executives can also emphasise e-mailing and dedicated talking points as a way to lift some of the burden off of instantaneous messaging. Find Sarah's analysis, sharing and super data on her LinkedIn 🙌
Trend 🌊 Against Stress, Meditation Will Not be Enough
One Frenchman in three - men and women alike - declare that they are concerned by a state of anxiety or depression. And while psychological conditions have long remained in the private sphere, they are now becoming more and more important in companies. More and more, we talk about "mental health". But why should companies focus on preserving the mental health of their employees? And how can they do it?
It is clear that companies have a strong interest in doing everything they can to preserve mental health. But to do so, they must start by understanding what determines it. In a large number of companies, we observe an immense waste of these cognitive and social resources: hyperconnection, a culture of urgency, isolation, impaired communication at a distance, excessive workload, unsuitable work spaces, etc.
The organization of work is often not adapted to the functioning of the brain. For several months now, we have been seeing an increase in the number of support actions for employees: mindfulness meditation, individual coaching, stress management workshops or therapy sessions with psychologists. While these actions can have positive effects, they invite employees to act mainly "in reaction" to their working conditions. And they can also contribute to a form of over-responsibility on the part of those concerned. Read more in this article (in French) from Gaëtan de Lavilléon (Doctor in neuroscience).
News 🗞 Apple Is Raising Pay For Corporate And Retail Workers
Tired of profit warnings and layoff announcements? Tech has good news too, well ok some cash rich tech giants... @ Apple, the starting hourly rate for retail workers is increasing from $20 to $22 per hour — though some regions will start higher — and starting salaries are also reportedly increasing.
“Supporting and retaining the best team members in the world enables us to deliver the best, most innovative, products and services for our customers” an Apple spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal in a statement. Apple’s move comes after Google, Amazon and Microsoft made changes to their compensation structures in recent weeks to pay workers more in a bid to retain and attract talent.
A combination of a very low unemployment rate and a high inflation rate is pushing employees in all sectors to shop around. For higher-paid tech workers, compensation has also been squeezed by falling share prices that impact stock awards. Employees, the war for talent is not over!
The Nugget 🍪 These Startups Still Hiring Despite The Tech Downturn
Fear not, there is still work to be done. Many scaleup are still welcoming new hires. Here are the companies that Sifted has confirmed are still hiring new talent.
FRANCE
Alan has posted a few open roles in the last several weeks 🚀
Algolia has hundreds of roles available across R&D, revenue, customer care etc.
Back Market is hiring for a handful of roles across several departments as it continues to grow 📱
SPAIN
Heura (plant-based meats) has multiple open roles from business development and people operations to head of content and more 🥩
Typeform (application software developer) has several roles open across engineering, customer success, product and marketing 👾
SWEDEN
Karma (tackling food waste and overproduction) is looking for new staff to join its finance department 🌮
UK
Elder (healthcare platform for live-in senior care) is searching for talent in sales OR customer success 👵🏾
Wise (fintech founded by two Estonian) is recruiting for over 400 roles 🔥
Crowdcube is an investment crowdfunding platform with over 20 roles available