‘A master class in how to handle layoffs’: Canva is restructuring 22% of its workforce, and LinkedIn is applauding the exit package
Fortune · Bilin Lin ·
CEO Melanie Perkins’s note to staff drew applause online for a package that includes a year of healthcare, career coaching and $10,000 project grants
Most layoff announcements draw anger. Canva’s is drawing applause.
Co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins announced on Tuesday that a sweeping restructuring will affect 1,271 employees, or 22% of the Sydney-based design company’s workforce. Her note to staff, which she also shared on LinkedIn, quickly became an online case study in how to cut jobs, largely because of what Canva is giving the people who leave.
Jasveer Singh, co-founder and CEO of KnotDating, called it “a master-class in how to handle layoffs” and described Perkins’s announcement as “thoughtful, honest and generous,” Newsweek reported. Mark Di Stefano, Rear Window editor at the Australian Financial Review, called the package “exceedingly generous.”