Olive AI the Columbus, Ohio-based healthcare automation company is undergoing staff cuts – letting go one-third of its overall staff ~ 450+ employees.
This news was communicated to all the employees in an email sent by CEO Sean Lane early on Tuesday, July 19. Olive AI had announced to be in a hiring freeze and assured will not be undergoing layoffs in an employees town hall in May.
Our CEO, Sean Lane, sent this message to all Olive employees at 11:45 a.m. EDT on July 19, 2022.
Olivians,
I’m writing to you today to share that we are transforming our business strategy, which requires that we reduce the size of our employee base by approximately 450 people. I realize this is hard news to hear, especially for those who will be leaving our team. I hope the information provided here will illuminate why we arrived at this difficult decision, how we will support our colleagues who are leaving, and how our business will operate and thrive moving forward.
First, the important details so you know what will happen immediately
Those impacted will receive an email shortly from a member of the Olive People team to the personal email addresses we have on file in Workday. This email will inform them that their official employment will end in 60 days, but their last day of work is today. It will also include information about their separation, where to find related documents, what to do with Olive-issued equipment, and how to participate in one-on-one conversations hosted by the Olive People team.
We understand that communicating this via email is not ideal and, of course, would have preferred to do so individually, but given the size of this change, we wanted to provide clarity to everyone as soon as possible.
What changed
We’ve grown rapidly over the last several years in service of creating a new healthcare experience for humankind. Olive’s values of “choose vision over status quo” and “act with urgency” drove us to make significant investments across the most pressing parts of healthcare, scale our teams and move quickly to bring solutions to the market.
The realities of today’s economy are forcing us to rethink this approach. While we are experiencing many of the same headwinds as other organizations — including shifts in the industry landscape, evolving customer expectations, and challenging market conditions — we also must reconcile missteps we made. Our fast-paced growth and lack of focus strained our product and engineering resources and prevented us from executing quickly on key initiatives. I take responsibility for this.
What this means for our strategy
To become a stronger, more sustainable company, we must transform our strategy to achieve profitability sooner than we originally planned. This means we must deliver on commitments, expand our customer base, drive steady revenue growth and continue creating value for the market and our customers.
To do this, we will focus on doing one thing, doing it incredibly well, and measuring what matters. Going forward, that one thing is the critical connection between providers and payers, starting with Autonomous Revenue Cycle for providers and Utilization Management Transformation for payers. Not only do these solution journeys comprise the vast majority of our current business footprint — more than 80% of our existing revenue and pipeline — but they are the foundation upon which Olive can continue to drive transformational value for the entire healthcare ecosystem.
Prioritizing end-to-end processes that enable payer-provider connectivity as our go-forward strategy provides us a unique advantage in the market, and gives us confidence as we look ahead. And our expectations are still high for what we can achieve — we remain deeply passionate about solving healthcare’s biggest problems. Today’s announcement means we will get more precise with how we do that.
What this means for the team
A more focused strategy requires a more focused organizational structure. With our new strategy in hand, we set out to build an organization that has the right roles in the right places to allow us to deliver on our goals and ensure we remain on the pathway to profitability. We started by identifying the critical positions needed to support our new strategy, and optimizing reporting lines to drive clear ownership and efficiency across the company. This exercise led to the consolidation of some teams across our sales, customer, product, and engineering divisions, and the elimination of teams and roles at all levels that weren’t directly tied to our go-forward plans.
We move into this new organizational structure today, which means we will say goodbye to friends and teammates we care about and who have made meaningful contributions to Olive. This was an incredibly difficult decision but one necessary for Olive moving forward.
What this means for those departing Olive
It is important to me that those impacted feel supported through this transition. With this in mind, departing employees will receive:
- At least 10 weeks of pay for eligible employees, including:
- 60 days of salary continuation (through September 19, 2022);
- Eligibility for two weeks severance pay per year of service, rounded up for partial years of service (for example, employees who have been with Olive for one year and one day will be eligible for four weeks of severance pay);
- Benefits continuation through the end of September, including access to First Stop Health and Cerebral;
- Outplacement services through Your Next Step, provided by INTOO; and
- Access to a public-facing talent hub to help them find new jobs within our investor network, local communities and beyond.
What’s next
Those not departing today will receive an email from the Olive People team to their Olive email address shortly with additional details about what’s next. In the coming hours, we will send a calendar invite for an upcoming all-company meeting where we will discuss our new strategy in greater detail — our focus areas, structure, changes in leadership and more. I am personally committed to regular communication as we move forward because I know our strategy requires that we stay closely aligned.
Because it is part of our DNA at Olive to care deeply about our customer and partner relationships, I want you to know that we will be communicating directly with each of our customers and partners shortly.
For those departing, I’d like to express my sincere gratitude for everything you’ve done for Olive. We wish you the best and are committed to providing you with resources to help you move forward. For those Olivians who remain, we understand you’ll need time to process this news. Please reach out to your leader with questions.
This is going to be an incredibly difficult day. But Olive’s mission is critical, and we are confident this strategy is the right one. I’m inspired by what we’ve achieved together thus far and know that with this transformation, we will ensure Olive’s impact for many years to come.
Sean Lane, CEO
