No heart. Greedy agendas. - Anonymous employee Sonder Employee Review

In challenging times, companies' true colors are shown. Unfortunately no one could have predicted the COVID situation to rip through the hospitality industry, and I understand having to make tough decisions to save a company in dire times. However, I was very disappointed in the way Sonder handled a 40% reduction in the organization. Calls were made over zoom, and lasted 5 minutes. Very little compassion was shown towards employees that had given their heart and soul to the company, and were not let go over being low performers. We were thrown out with no notice, very little severance, and no health insurance in the middle of a global health pandemic. My one income family of 4 now has 0 income, and no health coverage. Pretty scary. Some very good people were let go, yet some remaining are heartless. Take a look at the "Stronger than Ever" Glassdoor review posted on 3/23, the day of our layoffs. "There are some weak players who have and will complain but hopefully we've cut them out by now. The resulting team is leaner and ready to win." This is absolutely heartless and speaks volumes to the decisions made by leadership. I can't imagine feeling no empathy towards co-workers let go in a time like this - people are getting sick, losing their homes, their livelihood. Way to keep "good" people around that have no heart towards others. Sure shows the "hospitality everywhere" principle you say you embody so well. Or how about the blanket Linkedin post every single remaining employee posted within days of the layoff? The word for word script with no deviation? How genuine. What a way to "communicate directly with compassion" - another one of Sonder's principles obviously deeply entrenched in the culture. There is a way to lay people off compassionately. Sonder failed miserably.