There is one thing about being laid off from a job, but it’s a whole other story when it comes down to the way it’s done. Even having Donald Trump give you the news would be better than this.
RadioShack Corp. notified about 400 workers by e-mail that they were being dismissed immediately as part of planned job cuts.
Employees at the Fort Worth headquarters got messages Tuesday morning saying: “The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately, your position is one that has been eliminated.”
Company officials had told employees in a series of meetings that layoff notices would be delivered electronically, spokeswoman Kay Jackson said. She said employees were invited to ask questions before Tuesday’s notification on a company intranet site.
Derrick D’Souza, a management professor at the University of North Texas, said he had never heard of such a large number of terminated employees being notified electronically. He said it could be seen as dehumanizing to employees. [breitbart]
No kidding! 400 people is not that big of a number. They couldn’t even make the rounds by phone? Even though I loathe going into a RadioShack[wiki], I feel for the folks that work there. It’s the Kmart[wiki] of electronics stores, and I have yet to meet some one who doesn’t have a horror story about shopping there.
But an email telling you that you’ve been terminated? That’s cold. You’re not an employee. You’re just a machine with a number, a name, and an email address that gets a paycheck. Getting fired electronically is like setting an electronic time bomb to go off. Some one secure the stapler.