Marc Benioff, the co-CEO of Salesforce, dodged questions about the company's plans to cut 10% of its workforce during a rambling, two-hour all-hands meeting on Thursday, and judging by internal Slack messages viewed by Insider, employees weren't pleased their questions went unanswered.
Staff took to a Slack channel intended for questions during the all-hands to point out that many questions had been left unaddressed, according to screenshots viewed by Insider. Benioff first announced the plan for layoffs in an email on Wednesday, saying the cuts will happen "mostly over the coming weeks."
"Is Marc filibustering 47,600+ employees right now by talking in circles and avoiding the topic at hand," one employee wrote in the Slack channel, along with others writing variations of "ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS" and "what are we even talking about?"
"Not a question, but a suggestion: For future all-hands calls, it would be nice to know what the intent of the call is," another employee wrote in a message with more than 100 supportive reactions from employees. "I'm sure many of the 10s of thousands of people on this call could be getting things done rather than listening to an unstructured conversation about the business when most people came with very specific questions they hoped would be addressed."
So many employees were apparently upset following the all-hands meeting that one executive apologized in a subsequent meeting and told those who hadn't seen the meeting to not bother watching, according to one person present.
Benioff often discusses spirituality and has promoted the concept of "Ohana" at Salesforce. In Hawaiian culture, "Ohana" represents family bonds that encourage people to be responsible for each other, according to a Salesforce blog from 2017.
During Thursday's all-hands meeting, Benioff described the company's current situation as a "spiritual moment," and compared layoffs to death.
"At the kickoff every year, you know, we, um, have a moment where we always say goodbye to everyone who's died during the year. And, um, loss is really difficult and losing folks, and especially losing our trusted colleagues and our managers or employees, it's very similar, uh, in a lot of ways for me," Benioff said. "We need to kind of acknowledge that and give ourselves time to mourn and kind of be able to move forward."
"Given how little of this call has addressed the layoffs, the questions asked in this channel, and the 'family' who were laid off, should we consider retiring the phrase 'Ohana?'" one employee asked, referring to the company's mantra about supporting employees.
Salesforce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision to lay off staff blindsided many managers, Insider previously reported. One manager even said they had to call each of their employees to find out whether they had been laid off.
Salesforce notified roughly 1,000 employees about cuts so far this week, mostly in the company's MuleSoft unit, sources told Insider. The cuts follow rising internal pressure to increase sales in the wake of economic headwinds, according to some employees who recently spoke to Insider, and the interest of the activist investor Starboard Value, which disclosed a significant stake in Salesforce in October.
Meanwhile, many executives have announced plans to leave the company, including Bret Taylor, Benioff's co-CEO. Sources said Benioff has been exerting increasing control over the company, alienating his closest lieutenants while dialing up performance pressure on employees, Insider previously reported.
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