After his handling of a mass of job cuts sparked outrage, Better’s chief executive officer Vishal Garg said he will pay insurance expenses for a group of expectant parents who were caught up in its latest firing round.
The online mortgage lender is offering extended medical benefits to 19 expecting parents among the roughly 3,000 employees fired in the US and India this week, according to internal company communications seen by Bloomberg.
The group is eligible to receive 12 months of extended Cobra benefits, Richard Benson-Armer, interim chief human resources officer said in an internal message. Benson-Armer also said that Garg will “personally cover additional health-care insurance costs if the impacted employee has not found employment and/or health-care insurance”.
The firm confirmed Benson-Armer’s comments.
Garg drew criticism for firing 9% of the company’s workforce via video conference call late last year. He apologised and took a hiatus after clips of the incident went viral.
Employees who lost their jobs this week already qualify for cash severance payments, according to an email from chief financial officer Kevin Ryan. Ryan said Better would extend health-care coverage for fired US employees through the month of March, and that the company will also pay the premiums on three months of continued Cobra coverage.
Some employees caught in this round of job cuts said they received severance payments or were locked out of their computers before they were informed they had been fired. – Bloomberg
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