Better.com conducts third round of layoffs in five months

Better.com has conducted its third mass layoff in less than five months due to a declining mortgage market, according to an email to employees.

The move was going to take place on April 12.

It is not known how many people were affected by the layoffs. The production workforce would be impacted by the subject line. Better Real Estate was one of the impacted departments, according to sources. Sources say that the unit was once part of the company and where a big chunk of investment dollars were going to go in 2022.

Better had been vocal about its desire to build out its purchase experience and move beyond digital lending to help people find and purchase homes, hence changing its name from Better Mortgage to just Better. It was working to add value-added offerings like title and homeowner's insurance to its product suite.

The company's newly appointed chief people, performance and culture officer sent an email to employees that said layoffs would occur today.

900 people were laid off by the company in December. On March 8, it laid off 3,100 people. In that round, affected employees knew they were going to be laid off when they saw a severance check in their Workday accounts.

The email was sent to employees.

Team, 

As you know, our team has been focused on ensuring that our business is nimble, able to weather industry headwinds and placed in the strongest position possible for the future by implementing operational changes, reducing costs and making the difficult but necessary decisions to reduce our workforce.

As the mortgage environment in which we operate continues to indicate further declines ahead, we have to do more to ensure Better is appropriately positioned, financially and operationally, to navigate this changing environment. It is through this that we will continue to work to further position Better on its pathway to profitability.  

With this in mind, we have made the difficult decision to make another substantial cut to our production workforce in the United States. This is not the measure we wanted to take. But, this is both prudent and necessary for the health of our business.

We continue to prioritize transparency and care as we go through this process, and our leaders will be spending today making one-on-one calls to notify departing colleagues of this news. If you are impacted, you will receive a call today to learn the news personally and discuss next steps. 

We are providing comprehensive severance packages – encompassing compensation, healthcare coverage and access to outplacement services – to all departing employees, who will receive:

Compensation: A  minimum of 60 working days – and as much as 80 working days – of cash severance payments

Healthcare Coverage: Company healthcare benefits for those enrolled will remain effective until the end of the month (April 30, 2022) after which impacted employees will be able to opt into using COBRA, with Better covering the premiums until July 31 2022.

Outplacement services: Access to dedicated, one-to-one assistance for resume and candidate branding services, career coaching, job concierge search and support services and personalized job and networking opportunities through Better’s partnership with Randstad RiseSmart, a global leader in career transition support.  

As we work to streamline our operations and strengthen our business in the face of these prevailing headwinds, we are also making changes to our footprint in select locations to achieve further cost savings. If this impacts you or your team, you will receive additional information about next steps of the transition in the coming weeks.

Thank you for all of your hard work, care for our customers, and commitment to our purpose in these difficult times.

The head people role has been held by Benson-Armer since Alex D Amico left in November. He is a partner at Activant Capital, one of Better.com's earliest investors, as well as a former McKinsey consultant.

At the time of writing, Better.com had not responded to the comment that was reached out to them. At the time of writing, employees were waiting to hear if they were affected.

This is not a finished story.

Better.com teaches us how not to downsize a company