Case 4-1
status, valued at well over a billion dollars with millions
of venture-capital dollars funneled in over its
short lifetime.
As the business grew, Bosworth gradually turned
the day-to-day operation of Westwood over to professional
managers, including MBAs from top business
schools. But the bulk of employees were young
college graduates, eager to work at a high-flying
startup but also significantly burdened by student
debt.
Even though at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,
many CEOs anticipated needing to make difficult
decisions regarding their workforce, Bosworth
was originally optimistic that no one would have to
face being furloughed or fired: “You, the employees
of Go Travel, are the most important assets that we
have. Despite the difficult times this company now
faces, you have my assurance that I will never ask any
of you to leave for economic reasons.”
CORPORATE COMMUNICATION AT
GO TRAVEL
The company relied on a small staff of communication
professionals to handle its communication efforts. All
of the various activities that could be decentralized
(e.g., internal communications, investor relations)
were housed in the appropriate functional areas. This
organization developed naturally as the company grew
to become one of the most popular luggage brands in
the United States.
The main outreaches to employees were annual
meetings, where slide-heavy presentations from Bosworth
and other top company executives would draw
upwards of the entire employee workforce. Bosworth,
as a young owner and CEO, enjoyed much attention
from the press as a result of her meteoric rise in the
business world. She relied on an outside consultant,
Case 7-1
Go Travel
Dan Cassidy, a 2017 graduate of the Tuck School of
Business at Dartmouth College, was sitting in his
apartment, having spent a long day on Zoom meetings.
He had just signed out of a meeting with his
boss, Catherine Callahan, the Vice President of
Human Resources at Go Travel. “Dan, I know we’ve
all been stressed about much of what is going on
with COVID, but unfortunately we are going to have
to let a decent amount of our team go,” she said.
“I’m hoping that the CEO will buy my plan for voluntary
severance and expedited vesting schedules
for those who had taken a chance on working at a
startup like ours.”
Go Travel had never laid off anyone in the nearly
10 years of its existence. In fact, it had been considered
a high-flying darling of Silicon Valley that had
nowhere to go but up. The global pandemic, however,
had changed that, and as the Director of
Employee Relations, Dan would be responsible for
telling employees about the new policy within the
next couple of days.
As he stared out his apartment window to the
beautiful southern California hills, many thoughts
were going through his head. How should he identify
the issues involved for all employees? Should he get
the people in corporate communication involved?
Who would be the best person to release the information?
What about communication with other Go
Travel constituencies? And what would be the longterm
effects of what would be reported in the media
as a “major downsizing”?
GO TRAVEL BACKGROUND
Go Travel was started by Linda Bosworth, a brilliant
UCLA graduate, following her graduation in 2010.
With a vision for changing the travel experience in
her head, Bosworth had built the firm up to unicorn
Craig Stevens, to handle her own public relations.
Stevens also had a tremendous amount of influence
over the communications department at the company
itself.
The VP of Corporate Communication, Eric
Ridgeway, was actually one of the several employees
who would be affected by the current plan to trim
the workforce. He had been hired early on as a favor
to Bosworth’s father. Ridgeway had spent 25 years at
a large rival to Go Travel before signing on at the
company, and although he had a media background,
he was still newer to selling to the primarily millennial
consumer that Go Travel targeted. The problems
associated with Ridgway made the
communications effort more difficult for both Dan
Cassidy and the outside counsel advising him
through the process.
THE VOLUNTARY SEVERANCE AND
EXPEDITED VESTING PROGRAM
The Although the CEO was very much against the
programs that were about to be implemented, she
had been convinced by both Callahan, the Head of
Human Resources, and her Board of Directors that
something had to be done immediately, or the company
itself would be at risk.
The way the programs would work, about half
the employees were going to furloughed for an asyet
decided period of time, and another 25 percent
of employees would be let go. The intention was to
only let the lowest-performing employees go, and
thus, a product manager who had received less
than excellent performance appraisals for two consecutive
years would be a prime candidate for voluntary
severance with limited benefits, whereas a
manager approaching four years with the company
would be offered severance with full vesting.
Although both of these programs were “voluntary,”
the supervisors responsible for identifying candidates
were urged to get the weaker people to agree
as soon as possible.
COMMUNICATING ABOUT THE PLANS
As Cassidy signed into work the following day, he
saw that a meeting had been added to his calendar
with his supervisor, Catherine Callahan, as well as
Bosworth and Craig Stevens. “Well Dan, how are
you going to pull this one off?” joked Bosworth. Cassidy
responded, “Quite honestly, Linda, given your
position on this issue, my feeling is that you need to
get involved with the announcement tomorrow.”
As the discussion progressed, however, it was
obvious to Dan that he was the one that his boss and
the head of the company wanted to take the heat.
After two hours, Bosworth looked Dan squarely in
the eye and said: “This was not my idea in the first
place, but I know we have no choice but to adopt the
voluntary severance packages for Go Travel. Unfortunately,
I have conference calls with our investors
all day tomorrow, so you and Catherine are going to
have to take responsibility this time.”
Before Dan could fully digest what Bosworth had
told him, he was distracted by a Wall Street Journal
notification about another tech company that had
botched their COVID-19 workforce plan. He could
not help but wonder if he, too, would become the
focus of such an article if he mismanaged the difficult
conversations ahead.
˝ 2021 Trustees of Dartmouth College. All rights
reserved. For permission to reprint, contact the Tuck
School of Business at 603-646-3176.
CASE QUESTIONS
3. What advice would you give Cassidy about how
communications to employees are structured at
Go Travel?
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