Salesforce CEO cancels plan to lay off bottom 5% each year trends now

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has said he canceled dramatic plans to slash the bottom 5% of the company's workforce each year, after protests from staffers who found the proposal 'triggering'.

Benioff spoke out in an interview with the Wall Street Journal this week, outlining the Silicon Valley giant's cost-cutting moves as it grapples with growth that has slowed dramatically in recent quarters.

Salesforce slashed 8,000 jobs in January, or 10% of its workforce, and has dramatically scaled back pandemic-era perks such as wellness retreats and specialty baristas at its San Francisco headquarters. 

'It's an unfortunate part that you have to say goodbye to folks who, in many cases, are your friends and you have relationships with,' Benioff told the Journal. 'But, ultimately, the success of the business has to be paramount.' 

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Last month at an executive retreat, Benioff proposed a new ranking system to rate all employees based on metrics including their impact on revenue, with the intention of culling the bottom 5% each year.

However, he scrapped the ranking plan, telling the Journal that workers 'made a very passionate case that that is not a culture that they want to bring to Salesforce.' 

Executives who had previously worked at companies with similar annual ranking systems, such as Microsoft, found the plan 'triggering,' said Benioff. 

Salesforce, a cloud business software provider that saw booming growth during the pandemic, has now cut back on many of the wellness-centered perks it offered over the past few years, as it faces slowing growth.

For the past several years, the company offered salespeople a 'well-being day' of extra paid time off each year, a perk that ended in January.