Design tech company Canva is doing some major restructuring : The move will impact about 1,200 employees, or roughly 22% of its staff. But the company’s also getting attention for how it’s treating the newly terminated employees.
On Tuesday, CEO Melanie Perkins announced the news in a post on LinkedIn. She also shared a letter that laid out a generous severance package that’s being fawned over on social media.
The letter explained that all terminated employees would receive six months of salary, regardless of location. The Sydney-based company also said it will remove the one-year vesting cliff for those who joined the company within the last year, which means even those who recently joined can walk away with shares in the company.
They will also continue to receive healthcare, plus dedicated career support, resume help, coaching and interview preparation, plus one year of LinkedIn Premium. The company also launched a fund to provide $10,000 grants to those looking to start a company or project or their own. “Whether it’s starting a business or doing something meaningful for their local community, the fund is designed to help get those ideas off the ground,” Canva explained in the letter.
The company is even allowing all terminated employees to keep their MacBook laptops.
“We’re making significant changes to how we’re organised, which sadly means saying goodbye to many exceptionally talented people who have helped build Canva into what it is today,” Perkins wrote in her LinkedIn post.
Perkins added that the company put in the time and effort to create “an opt-in alumni directory” for those who are being forced to leave the company, where former employees can learn about work opportunities. Perkins also included her email address and asked leaders with any work opportunities to reach out to her directly.
The CEO didn’t specify a reason for the layoffs in the note. But the news comes at a time in which the company is gearing up for a potential IPO following several years of spending on its suite of AI -powered products.
The CEO continued: “This is the hardest decision we’ve made in Canva’s history, and we know it will deeply impact many people and their loved ones. While we believe these changes are critical to help set Canva up for the future, Canva would not be the company it is today without their hard work, and we want to do everything we can to help set them up well for their next chapter.”
More often than not, when companies go through massive, major overhauls (like laying off nearly a quarter of their employees), the news is about how those employees may struggle to find employment, or how the company failed to support them .
But Canva has seemed to take a more humane approach than we’re used to. In today’s era of forever layoffs, companies drop staff with decades of loyalty abruptly over a group Zoom call , and that’s it.
Commenters on the CEO’s post were quick to weigh in on how the company is showing other leaders how to gracefully handle layoffs.
“Really impressive, empathetic, transparent, and generous way to communicate what was undoubtedly a very hard decision,” one LinkedIn commenter replied. “Especially with what this industry has seen over the past year, this is an example for other organizations on how to do a hard thing right.”
Another added, “Plenty of companies will do layoffs this year. Few will do them like this.”
That’s likely the case, but with all of the positive attention surrounding Canva’s restructuring layoffs, it’s hard to imagine that it won’t inspire at least a few leaders to take note. Or at least, inspire more workers elsewhere to push for this in the future after being shown the door.
