PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada has come under fire for using a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. in a layoff email to staff in which she said the firm would be laying off around 7% of its workforce globally, with the vast majority of those positions located in North America.
According to CBS News, at the end of the announcement, she said that the moment reminded her of Martin Luther King Jr’s quote that “the ultimate measure of a (leader) is not where (they) stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where (they) stand in times of challenge and controversy.”
On social media, the email received criticism for being “tone-deaf” and “disgusting.”
“All-time classic bad layoff announcement: CEO of PagerDuty opens with “Hi Dutonians,” takes 370 words to get to the layoffs bit, continues for another 1250 words, and ends with “I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther King said,” wrote Tom Gara, a technology communications manager at Meta, in a tweet.
However, in a memo, PagerDuty CEO expressed regret for the way she communicated
“The quote I included from Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. was inappropriate and insensitive. I should have been more upfront about the layoffs in the email, more thoughtful about my tone, and more concise. I am sorry”.
Tejada apologized in a blogpost.
