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Cloudflare’s viral termination video: A lesson in humane HR practices in the digital, transparent age

If you haven’t watched the video of Brittany Pietsch getting fired from Cloudflare, you need to carve out some time. About nine minutes and 15 seconds, to be precise. (Full video below so you don’t need to go searching for the original.)

There are so many lessons that HR professionals, managers, and leaders can take from it that it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s begin with this not-so-surprising reality: In this era of social media and ubiquitous cameras and the ease of recording, employers need to know there’s a good chance your conversations are going to be recorded.

And not just recorded, but shared — and viewed widely — by employees, customers, job candidates, and the general public. While it’s always a bad idea to stereotype, younger workers in particular are not shy about calling out bad behaviour and holding employers accountable for their actions.

Pietsch set up her phone and recorded herself during a virtual call where she expected to be let go after hearing from other colleagues who had been invited to short meetings seemingly out of the blue.

“When you know you’re about to get laid off you film it 🙂 this was traumatizing honestly lmao,” she posted to TikTok, including #cloudflare in the post.

As of the time of writing, it had generated 534,500 views, 32,400 likes and more than 3,100 comments.

Who wasn’t in the meeting

Pietsch stopped what appears to be two people on the line almost as soon as they launched into their script, telling her she had not met expectations for performance and they were going to “part ways.”

She pointed out that she had joined the company at the end of August and had been on a three-month training ramp, which led her right into the holiday season.

“Every single conversation I’ve had with (my manager), he has been giving me nothing but I’m doing a great job,” she said. “I have had great activity. I have really great meetings. I’m picking up the products very quickly.”

Beyond defending her performance, she also questioned why her manager wasn’t on the termination call.

“Why are you doing this and not my manager? We’ve never met, so this seems a little odd that my manager has no idea that this has been happening and the director has no idea that this has been happening,” said Pietsch. “I’m just definitely confused, and I would love an explanation that makes sense.”

In a LinkedIn post two days ago, Pietsch offered more explanation about the fact her manager wasn’t on the call.

“My manager had no idea this was happening. My manager was just as blindsided as I was. On the call, you can hear the HR rep admit that they could not attest to what my manager has said about my performance,” she said. “That essentially confirmed for me they had no idea who I was or why they were letting me go. My manager called me afterward and told me he was sick to his stomach and couldn’t believe this was happening.”

In the TikTok video, she also pointed out that she had not been put on a performance improvement plan and had not received any negative feedback at all about her performance.

Reasons for termination cloudy

The Cloudflare reps conducting the call are never able to articulate a clear reason for her termination, something Pietsch latches on to during the call.

“I really need an answer and an explanation as to why Brittany Pietsch is being let go, not why Cloudflare decided to hire too many people and are now actually realizing they can’t afford this many people,” she said. “If that’s the real answer, I would rather you just told me instead of making up some bullshit and telling me that right before I lose my job from someone that I’ve never met before.”

She then tore into the process Cloudflare was using.

“It must be very easy for you to just have these little 10 minute, 15 minute meetings, tell someone that they’re fired and completely wreck their whole life,” she said. “That’s extremely traumatizing for people, if you can imagine that… I have really given my whole energy and life over the last four months to this job. And to be let go for no reason is like a huge slap in the face from a company that I really wanted to believe in.”

The Cloudflare reps said her questions were valid but then told her that the call wasn’t the “forum” to go into detail about the reasons, which Pietsch balked at.

“Then when? If it’s not right as I’m getting fired, it’s certainly not going to be after when I’m no longer part of the company,” she said.

Turning back to her LinkedIn post, Pietsch added the following:

“The most common message I’m receiving is how many people have experienced something shockingly similar. Cold, unexplainable firing by people they’ve never met – even after years of loyalty for some,” she said. “All people saying they wish they would have stood up for themselves as I did. Heartbreaking stories of people’s lives suddenly changing with no explanation and just told to “deal with it”. What??? I’ll never be able to wrap my mind around it. We as employees are expected to give 2 weeks notice and yet we don’t deserve even a sliver of respect when the roles are reversed?”

Cloudflare CEO responds: ‘Painful to watch’

The viral video caught the attention of Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s CEO. He responded to it with a post on X on Jan. 12.

Prince said the company fired about 40 sales people out of 1,500, which he called a “normal quarter.”

“When we’re doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they’re going to be successful or not. Sadly, we don’t hire perfectly,” he said.

And while the company said it often tries to “fire perfectly,” it failed in this case.

“The video is painful for me to watch,” said Prince. “Managers should always be involved. HR should be involved, but it shouldn’t be outsourced to them. No employee should ever actually be surprised they weren’t performing.”

Prince didn’t back down from the decision to terminate the workers, including Pietsch.

“Any healthy org needs to get the people who aren’t performing off,” he said. “That wasn’t the mistake here. The mistake was not being more kind and humane as we did.”

Lessons learned

The reality is that employers drop the axe all the time on workers. In that sense, Prince is right — there is no point debating the merits of one employee’s viral video and whether or not she deserved to be terminated.

But the way it’s handled is cringe-inducing. Here are the critical takeaways and lessons for employers and HR:

Expect transparency: You may not have planned to record and share difficult conversations around terminations, but in the digital age your employees can and will. Always conduct yourself as if you’re being recorded.

Come with details: Employees deserve to know exactly what they did wrong, unless you’re terminating without cause. While there is no room for debate in termination meetings, you owe your staff an explanation. If it’s without cause, say so. Honesty is the best policy.

Managers must attend: Prince put it well — HR has to be involved in the meetings, but it shouldn’t be outsourced to them. Too many managers want to wash their hands of this dirty work. They can’t. They have to be in the room or on the call to break the news, barring some exceptional circumstances.

No surprises: The termination meeting should never be the first time an employee hears there is a problem with performance. There should be warnings, verbal and written, and I’m a big believer in performance improvement plans. If the worker falls off their chair during the call, then you haven’t done your job properly.

Humanize the process: Despite what Pietsch said and believes, it’s no easy task being on the other side of these conversations. Terminations keep HR people and managers up at night in the days leading up to them. And while scripts are important for a variety of reasons, including legal ones, it’s OK to show compassion and understanding in the conversation.

Watch the video

@brittanypeachhh

Original creator reposting: brittany peach cloudflare layoff. When you know you’re about to get laid off so you film it 🙂 this was traumatizing honestly lmao #cloudflare #techlayoffs #tech #layoff

♬ original sound – Brittany Pietsch