Knee-Jerks Blast RadioShack

RadioShack last week reportedly sent about 400 employees an e-mail letting them know they’d been canned.

“The work force reduction notification is currently in progress,” the e-mail reportedly said “Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.”

At first glance, the notice looks as if it was not only sent via computer, but written by one, as well.

However, check out the construction of the first sentence. It clearly refers to the company’s layoff notices as a process employees were already aware of.

And indeed, according to RadioShack, employees had been told their notices would come electronically. The company also reportedly gave them 30 minutes to collect their thoughts and belongings before meeting with senior management.

Folks, we have been on the receiving end and the delivering end of layoff notices multiple times, and both sides suck. There is no “good” way to tell someone they’re being fired.

However, taking all day picking people out one by one to tell them personally they’re getting canned is absolutely inhuman to all but the first person fired. Hauling everybody into a room to tell them as a group is inhuman, as well. If someone has to cry, they should be able to do it in private.

RadioShack reportedly told employees during the previous 10 days that layoff messages would be delivered at 8:45 on August 22. Employees were reportedly glued to their computer screens at the appointed time, waiting to see if they were getting the ax. It seems to us as if RadioShack decided to rip the proverbial Band-Aid off quickly, rather than do a slow, painful peel.

Derrick D'Souza, a management professor at the University of North Texas, told AP that he had never heard of such a large number of employees being informed of their termination electronically. He said employees could see it as dehumanizing.

Oh yeah, and that process where the boss calls the employee into the office to deliver the news with some unknown corporate drone from HR as a witness is sooo humanizing.