- News>
- Newspapers
U r sakd: Is there a nicer way to fire?: Times of India
London, June 12: There are, Paul Simon once sang, 50 ways to leave your lover. There may be fewer ways to sack your staff, but most are unpleasant - though rarely as nasty as the method chosen last week by Accident Group, a firm that specialises in personal-injury claims, after Amulet, its Luxembourg-based parent, ran out of money.
London, June 12: There are, Paul Simon once sang, 50 ways to leave your lover. There may be fewer ways to sack your staff, but most are unpleasant — though rarely as nasty as the method chosen last week by Accident Group, a firm that specialises in personal-injury claims, after Amulet, its Luxembourg-based parent, ran out of money.
Accident Group’s 2,500 staff received a series of text messages on their mobile phones, telling them to call a number.
There, a recorded message from the company’s insolvency administrators at PricewaterhouseCoopers informed them that, ‘‘All staff who are being retained will be contacted today. If you have not been spoken to you are therefore being redundant.’’
This may be the nastiest case of workers being fired by text messages. But it is not the first time that firing has been nastier than it need be.
Wayne Cascio, a professor of human resources at the University of Colorado-Denver, recalls a technology firm whose staff returned from lunch to find that their security cards no longer worked. Paul Sanchez, of Mercer HR, recalls one firm that invited its staff to a conference in Florida.
Briefing packs told some to go to Ballroom A, others to Ballroom B. Those in Ballroom A got a presentation on the firm’s future; the others were told to go by noon.
Is there a better way? Francis ‘‘Tom’’ Coleman, an American lawyer who recently wrote a book on ‘‘ending the employment relationship’’, urges bosses to sack staff in private, doing it respectfully and preparing a script of what to say. He says bosses often panic, fearing that dismissed staff may steal valuable information if allowed to linger.
In fact, brutally sacked staff may do more damage than those let go kindly. In America, they may sue for the ‘‘intentional infliction of emotional distress’’. At Accident Group, the staff promptly ransacked the firm’s offices and made off with computers and other equipment.
There, a recorded message from the company’s insolvency administrators at PricewaterhouseCoopers informed them that, ‘‘All staff who are being retained will be contacted today. If you have not been spoken to you are therefore being redundant.’’
This may be the nastiest case of workers being fired by text messages. But it is not the first time that firing has been nastier than it need be.
Wayne Cascio, a professor of human resources at the University of Colorado-Denver, recalls a technology firm whose staff returned from lunch to find that their security cards no longer worked. Paul Sanchez, of Mercer HR, recalls one firm that invited its staff to a conference in Florida.
Briefing packs told some to go to Ballroom A, others to Ballroom B. Those in Ballroom A got a presentation on the firm’s future; the others were told to go by noon.
Is there a better way? Francis ‘‘Tom’’ Coleman, an American lawyer who recently wrote a book on ‘‘ending the employment relationship’’, urges bosses to sack staff in private, doing it respectfully and preparing a script of what to say. He says bosses often panic, fearing that dismissed staff may steal valuable information if allowed to linger.
In fact, brutally sacked staff may do more damage than those let go kindly. In America, they may sue for the ‘‘intentional infliction of emotional distress’’. At Accident Group, the staff promptly ransacked the firm’s offices and made off with computers and other equipment.