How would you react if you were e-mailed from your company?

What if the decision to fire you was made by an algorithm?

It may sound like the plot of an episode of

Black Mirror

, but that's what happened to 150 of the 500 employees of software company Xsolla, a Russian company specializing in payments solutions for online games. .

During the pandemic, many people had to telecommute and the Xsolla company was no exception. Rather than trusting its employees, the company decided to watch them. An algorithm then took into account various factors, such as the time employees used during their work to carry out activities unrelated to their duties in the company.

“The company's big data team analyzed your activity in Jira, Confluence, Gmail, chats, documents and dashboards and marked you as a low-engagement and unproductive employee.

In other words, you weren't always present in the workplace when doing it remotely, explains an excerpt from the email signed by the CEO and founder of the company, Aleksandr Agapitov.

Many of you might be surprised, but I really believe that Xsolla is not for you.

"

Without any remorse for the process, the CEO adds that the company has partnered with several human resources agencies to help employees "find a good place where they can earn more and work even less".

Laid off due to a decline in growth

After the layoffs, Aleksandr Agapitov gave an interview in which he explained that the decision was made because the company had stopped growing at a rate of 40%.

“Sometimes you have to take difficult and unpopular steps to keep growing and evolving,” said the CEO.

Agapitov also said he doesn't agree with all the layoffs, but is forced to go through with it due to internal protocols agreed to with the company's shareholders.

This is not the first time that this type of event has occurred.

Already in 2019, a similar algorithm system used by Amazon was denounced by officials.

According to Bloomberg, the company had used data to hire, evaluate and fire employees without a single human contacting them in the process.

Three hundred full-time employees were thus dismissed by an algorithm between August 2017 and September 2018.

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