I think it would have been a better decision to lay off 3-4 more people and let the remaining employees keep their perks and annual salary increase. 3% doesn't keep up with inflation. Maybe make that 4-5 people and create an incentive fund for those who kick some ass and help the company fight its way back from its mistakes.
3% absolutely does keep up with inflation[1][2] (whether it adequately compensates for increased experience as well is another matter).
The last 10 years US inflation was 3.2,2.9,3.8,-0.4 1.6,3.2,2.1,1.5,1.6,0.1 according to the world bank[2]. Giving the US an average inflation rate of just 1.96%.
Those may be inflation figures given my the government, but real life has real inflation -- like things that are not counted in the world bank inflation period. Could of questions to think about:
- In real life, how much has your rent gone up by?
- In real life, how much have your medical premiums and co-pays increased?
- In real life, how much have your drug co-pays gone up?
<2%, 0%, and 0% respectively (annualized). You have to recognize that the inflation figures are a national average - of course there are a lot of people experiencing more inflation than that, just like there are a lot experiencing less.
That might have been the plan to profit from that announcement to get rid of the perks. In the long run, if your company keeps growing in size, the perks might hurt.
I have a feeling their blog post in a year from now is going to be about how Buffer worked its way through a bunch of employee churn and training new hires, and how growth suffered. I think the outcome from some extra layoffs and foregoing the pay cut would be a post about how employees enjoyed high morale and rallied Buffer back into growth. And how sacrifices by the founders while maintaining pay and benefits through a tough time generated high employee loyalty.
