Canva is to cut jobs and move staff as part of a restructure affecting 1,271 people, or 22 per cent of its workforce, the Australian design software company announced yesterday.
In a note to staff published on the company’s newsroom, co-founder and chief executive Melanie Perkins said some employees would see their roles change or be asked to relocate to centralised hubs, while others would leave the business. The note does not say how many of the 1,271 roles will be made redundant, or give a breakdown by country or function.
“This is without doubt the hardest moment in our thirteen-year history,” Ms Perkins wrote.
Growth slowdown
Ms Perkins said the company had decided to change how it is organised, where some of its teams are based and the roles and skills it needs. She told staff this had been Canva’s hardest year yet and that, as the company had said earlier in the year, “our growth has slowed for the first time in a decade.”
She said she had concluded, after exploring a range of alternatives, that “small changes won’t be enough”. She added: “To set ourselves up for the next decade, we need to refound Canva, getting back to our roots of small, empowered teams with the freedom to make decisions, take ownership and focus on what matters most for our community.”
Ms Perkins also pointed to new technology changing what people create, how they create it and what they expect from the products they use.
Three changes
The restructure has three parts, according to the note. First, Canva will bring its Product, Growth and Platform teams together into a single Product Org. Ms Perkins wrote: “Improving one part of our product often requires navigating between Product, Growth and Platform, with more handovers and coordination than necessary.”
Second, the company will fold narrower subspecialties into broader roles, simplify management layers and consolidate overlapping responsibilities.
Third, it will co-locate closely connected teams. Sydney will become the primary base for more product teams and for other roles where close collaboration is considered important, the note said. From January, most hybrid employees will be expected to spend around two to three days a week in the office.
In the UK, a British Chambers of Commerce survey found that 9 per cent of firms had seen staff resign after remote working options were removed.
Canva joins other technology groups that have reduced headcount this year, including Meta, which was reported to be preparing about 8,000 job cuts, and Oracle, whose workforce fell by about 21,000 over its financial year.
Support for departing staff
Everyone leaving will receive at least six months’ salary, inclusive of statutory entitlements, regardless of location, according to the note. Canva will also remove the one-year vesting cliff for staff who joined in the past year, provide 12 months of continued healthcare coverage in countries where it currently offers it, and extend 12 months of its employee assistance programme, Canva Care, to departing staff and their families.
Career support will include one-to-one coaching, interview preparation and a year of LinkedIn Premium, alongside an opt-in alumni talent directory that Canva said it would share with investors, partners and its wider industry network. Departing employees will be able to keep their company MacBooks.
The company is also launching the Canva Collective Fund, which will offer US$10,000 grants to departing staff who want to start a business or a community project. Those leaving have until 14 December to register their interest. Ms Perkins said “we won’t take any ownership or equity in what they create.”
What happens next
Canva has teams across 37 countries and said the timing and form of individual conversations would vary according to local requirements. Affected staff will be invited to individual meetings with a senior leader in their area.
Departing employees will keep access to Slack and Gmail until the end of the week so they can choose how to tell colleagues. A company-wide all-hands meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday, with organisation-level meetings to follow from the next day.
Ms Perkins wrote: “I’m deeply sorry for the pain and disruption this will cause for everyone affected.”
