And just when we thought that it couldn’t get any worse than the Radio Shack situation, there’s always further down to go.
According to a “non-scientific” survey reported by MSNBC, 14% of the men polled and 11% of the women polled stated that they would fire someone via IM (with an emoticon of course).
Oy.
(Thanks to Scott Beale for the tip.)
Oy is right.
Tacky, tacky, tacky. The proper way to fire someone is face to face with the direct supervisor (or if that person wasn’t involved in the decision, one level up) being the bearer of bad news.
For a remote employee, I will allow a phone call termination, but only in extreme situations.
Via IM. Oh my.
I agree that taking an email approach is poor form. A number of years ago an airline based in Arizona took a similar approach (during the holiday season) and was then surprised when the employees voted in a union :)
That said, they do deserve some credit for a fairly robust severance package.