Senior Partnership Manager Unite Fired after a tweet critical of a company executive. This comes shortly after Unity laid off about 8 percent of its workforce earlier this month.
The tweet in question states: “A Unity exec just shared that they rented an ancillary apartment in SF to make it easier to work from the office – maybe we should all do this to make RTO easier? This company Already lost it. Totally disconnected.”
Poster Miranda Due then stated, “Renting an apartment in SF would cost me more than half my monthly salary š probably at least 3/4 of what I take home”. About two hours later, Due confirmed that she was fired .
This comes during a turbulent time for the company. In the layoff announcement, Unity also said that the company expects employees to return to the office starting in September. After several years of COVID and lockdowns, workforces around the world have shifted to a work-from-home model. Now, as things return to relative normalcy, some companies are looking to bring employees back to the office.
Why does Unity do this? Well, there are several reasons. Some argue that having teams work in an office is better for team cohesion and building rapport among employees. Thereās also the cost of office spaceācompanies pay staggering sums for multi-year leases of physical offices. Itās worth noting that Unity is headquartered in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the US to live in. To be sure, Unity has been paying huge sums for empty chairs and conference rooms over the past few years.
However, the arguments against returning to office are compelling. A study of 13,000 people by Apollo Technical found that working from home increased worker productivity by 13%. You shouldn’t forget about the money saved for your employees, avoiding the daily commute to the office, and the option to work in cheaper parts of the country (or world) while maintaining a valuable, productive member of the workforce.
due to setbacks Other ex-Unity employees share news of Due firing online. Whether senior partnership managers should complain publicly about their own companies or the executives who work there is debatable.
But Due is certainly not the first to make such complaints. Not to mention the statement she claims one of the company’s executives made – given the current recession and global financial crisis, the idea that people could move to SF is ludicrous even to those currently in senior positions .
As Unity moves forward with its planned back-to-office strategy, we’re sure to see employees who value working from home jump ship at an increasing rate. This wasn’t a Unity-specific event either, Activision Blizzard also announced the end of its work-from-home policy, which caused many developers to leave, taking their talents elsewhere.
We’re in a turbulent time in the industry, and companies like Unity will have to decide whether former employees like Due are effective in their setbacks, and bear the cost of their decisions.
What do you think about this story? Should Due post these comments online? Is Unity correct in dismissing them? How do you feel about going back to the office? let us know!
