The tech company Yahoo is reeling. Investors are putting heavy pressure on CEO Marissa Mayer for the company's lack of growth.
Yesterday, Yahoo announced 15-percent of its workforce will be laid off. That's 1,700 people. But another threat is looming.
A federal lawsuit filed by a former Yahoo editor who oversaw content on multiple websites. He was fired via Yahoo's signature 1-to-5 employee rating scale. Marissa Mayer introduced the system shortly after taking over the company in 2012. Former Yahoo employee Gregory Anderson claims the quarterly numerical rating is used to conduct mass layoffs and replace men with women, not truly rate employee performance.
Forced ranking, where managers across a company are required to rank all of their employees on a bell curve, has been a controversial management technique since then GE CEO Jack Welch popularized it in the 1980s.
Guests:
Jon Parsons, employment attorney in Palo Alto who is representing former Yahoo employee Gregory Anderson in his lawsuit against Yahoo
Tamara Devitt, a labor and employment attorney at Haynes and Boone, a law firm with offices in Palo Alto and Orange County