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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