Deel Acquires Zavvy & Expedia Lays off 1,500 Employees

Author

Moshe Ohana
March 03, 2024

What's inside:

The Markets

Deel: Can’t stop won’t stop

All in one Global HR Solution, Deel, closed it’s acquisition of Munich based people development platform, Zavvy, on February 28th, 2024. This is Deel’s 6th acquisition since its founding in 2019.

Deel provides employer of record, contractor, immigration, and HRIS services worldwide and acquiring Zavvy adds an L&D product to Deel’s ever-expanding suite of services. Once integrated, Zavvy’s product suite will be known as Deel Engage.

Deel also announced that, Deel HR, its HRIS platform, previously free for up to 200 users, is now free to us for all Deel customers.

Deel CEO, Alex Bouaziz, said, “Deel is all about helping companies get the best out of their global teams, and Zavvy’s AI technology is at the forefront of people management and talent development. It’s a perfect fit - our customers are looking for a one-stop-shop for all things HR, and Zavvy’s people management tools now fill in that missing piece of our global HR offering.”

So, who will Deel scoop up next?

Read more here

Work Life Balance

Ford survey finds workers like comfort over cash

According to a 2024 study by Ford, “…half of the global workforce would accept a 20% pay cut in favor of prioritizing their quality of life”. Millennials in the US responded positively to that statement at a rate of 60%.

Designed by Freepik

Since 2020, companies globally have struggled to find the best structure for enabling workers to strike the perfect work-life balance. In the beginning of the work from home era, workers and employers had a hard time disconnecting and turning off their “always on” mentality. Over the last 3 years, companies are increasingly calling workers back to the office. Whether this is to justify existing real estate expenditures, ensure workers are actually working, or to encourage in office collaboration is anyone’s guess, but workers are yearning for more at home days.

Does more time in the office equate to higher output from workers?

The answer to that question is still being tossed around offices globally so only time may tell.

Read more here

Layoffs

Employees vs contingent workers

Seattle based, Expedia Group, announced it’s laying off 1,500 additional employees in 2024. This is only the latest round of layoffs, since the start of the pandemic, for the travel company.

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With most of the layoffs affecting product and tech workers, you may wonder if this could have been avoided.

In an internal memo from last week, outgoing CEO, Peter Kern, said: “With so much technical achievement over the last 12 months and so much tech debt behind us, we now are obliged to take a close look at roles, skills, teams, and locations to ensure that our resources are focused in the right areas…”.

I’m reading this as since Expedia has completed a lot of tech projects, they no longer need these employees. This is fine but why hire them as indefinite employees in the first place? Would this not have been a great time to leverage a contingent workforce who are there for a limited amount of time until they complete a certain project? Fixed term employees or contractors are both great options.

Why hire employees when contingent workers made more sense in this instance?

Companies need to consider what kinds of workers they engage with. Do you need someone full time or will they no longer be needed once the project is done? 

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