Bay Area CEO Dorsey tells workers he’s making firings easier

Block CEO Jack Dorsey reportedly has a new plan for workers who are deemed to be underperforming: Fire them quickly.

Three weeks ago, Block leadership told staff that the company will be cutting hundreds of employees over the next year to get down to a 12,000-employee cap. On Tuesday, Dorsey — who founded Twitter before Block, the latter of which has its main office in Oakland after ditching its San Francisco headquarters — sent a staffwide message outlining a part of the restructuring plan, a message since published by Business Insider.

“We want to help everyone achieve excellence here at Block,” his note reportedly said, “and if that’s not possible for any one person, we want to acknowledge that, and part ways without delay (which is a perfectly fine and honorable outcome.)”

Dorsey then critiqued how his company has approached giving workers feedback in the past, according to Business Insider. He announced that Block would no longer run “performance improvement plans,” or “PIPs,” the note said. Performance improvement plans are intended to give workers a detailed explanation of how they’re falling short, and how they need to improve; they precede a possible firing. Of PIPs, Dorsey reportedly wrote, “they often feel too late and don’t push the manager to give feedback in a timely manner.” He called the them “a lazy and often surprising approach.”

“Performance should be continuously evaluated, and feedback should not be queued up for later,” he added, according to Business Insider.

The new plan, Dorsey has reportedly decided, is for Block leadership to rely on “milestones” like product launches and other big events, after which workers will receive quick feedback and managers will decide “whether to part ways immediately (instead of letting things linger).”

Dorsey gave managers a warning too, per Business Insider, reportedly telling staff, “We will not tolerate mediocrity or low performance from our leads. You have my commitment that we will hold a very high bar to all of them, and act extremely fast if things are clearly not working out.”

The urgency from Block’s top executive is reminiscent of pushes by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai in 2022. Both businesses were struggling, relative to the prior year’s success, and both CEOs pushed their employees to work harder. Half a year later, massive layoff rounds ensued.

Hear of anything happening at Block or another tech company? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at [email protected] or on Signal at 628-204-5452.