COVID-19 | Crisis handling could see rise in staff claims, lawyer suggests

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, employees have had to face job losses and redundancies, while a large number have had to come to terms with what furlough means for them and their careers.

Due to this, the crisis has shone a light on businesses that have behaved immorally, without putting the wellbeing of its staff first. In particular, this rings true after electric scooter company Bird decided to lay off 406 of its workers via the means of a video call.

HR Grapevine previously reported that the firm removed 30% of its workforce over a two-minute Zoom call which was titled ‘COVID-19 Update’. In the call, it was revealed that staff were informed that their roles would be terminated and April 3, 2020, would be their last working day with Bird.

Similarly, the ride hailing app Uber was also criticised for choosing to share this life-changing information on a video call. In total, 3,500 customer service and recruitment employees were told that they had lost their jobs in a three-minute call hosted on Zoom.