Denver-based Guild, an online worker training platform, offered a hard lesson to its employees Wednesday, telling a quarter of them they would be out of a job.
The company didn’t specify the number of workers being laid off when asked. But based on an estimated headcount of 1,200 employees, about 300 people may have lost their jobs.
The latest round of layoffs comes a year after the company released 172 workers or about 12% of its workforce of more than 1,400 people. At the time, about half of its workforce was based in Colorado.
“As Guild’s business continues to grow, we must ensure that we deliver on our mission as efficiently and effectively as possible. To exceed our audacious goals, we shared with employees today that we have decided to restructure our organization. This restructuring resulted in a reduction in our workforce,” Guild’s CEO, Bijal Shah, said in a statement Wednesday.
Shah said the restructuring would allow the company to “operate more efficiently, innovate faster, and continue to deliver strong outcomes for our stakeholders.”
Workers are being offered several months of severance, support to transition careers and a window of time to exercise their equity in the company.
Guild offers about 2,000 courses on its platform and counts several large corporations as clients, including Walmart, Target, Taco Bell and Chipotle. The training ranges from career coaches to “upskill” modules that help workers earn a promotion to college-level courses.
Guild was cofounded in 2015 by Rachel Romer, the granddaughter of former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer and daughter of Chris Romer. She built the company to a $4.4 billion value, making it one of Colorado’s tech unicorns.
Last August, at age 34, Romer suffered a severe stroke that required months of rehabilitation and resulted in her resignation as CEO.
