Some Salesforce managers, even those with senior titles, were blindsided by the company's layoff plans when they commenced on Wednesday, according to internal Slack messages viewed by Insider.
One message described a manager who learned of the layoffs from employees after they were cut.
"Managers are not aware that their employees are impacted. They are getting emails/notes from their team members that they are impacted. Was this a planned strategy of not informing the managers or just an oversight?" one senior manager asked in an all-company Slack channel.
In four other Slack exchanges shared with Insider, managers told direct reports that they had no additional information to share and had learned of the layoffs at the same time as their staffers. Slack messages viewed by Insider were sent by managers ranging from senior manager to vice president level.
"They know nothing and they are scrambling," one Salesforce employee said of their managers.
Salesforce laid off around 1,000 employees this week in an initial round of job cuts, insiders say. The company said in an SEC filing Wednesday it will cut 10% of its workforce and will close some of its offices as part of a restructuring plan. For fiscal 2022, Salesforce reported 73,461 employees, which means roughly 7,000 could be eliminated. About 55% of Salesforce employees are based in the U.S.
CEO Marc Benioff sent an email about the cuts to staff at 3 a.m. PST. In it, he attributed the situation to over hiring in a high-growth period during the pandemic that was ultimately not sustainable given the current softening economy.
"The environment remains challenging and our customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions. With this in mind, we've made the very difficult decision to reduce our workforce by about 10 percent, mostly over the coming weeks," Benioff wrote, noting that the workers "initially affected" by the cuts would receive an email notifying them of their layoff within an hour of his announcement.
Salesforce insiders say cuts so far have come to customer success roles at Mulesoft, the data integration platform Salesforce acquired for $6.5 billion in 2018, as well as recruiting and product management roles and to Slack, which Salesforce bought for $27.7 billion in 2021. The company also cut hundreds of sales jobs in November.
Concerns about a greater layoff than the November reductions have been circulating at Salesforce for weeks. Insider reported in December that some Salesforce managers were being asked to identify their bottom 10% of performers.
The last month has been turbulent for Salesforce in other ways. The company has seen an executive leadership exodus, including co-CEO Bret Taylor, who was seen as Marc Benioff's heir apparent. The CEOs of Salesforce subsidiaries Slack and Tableau, Stewart Butterfield and Mark Nelson, also announced their departures within days of Taylor's announcement.
Salesforce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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