Just When I Was Trying to Defend HR

I had plans to defend (well and do a little bit of mocking) HR today, but I'm afraid some HR VP has spent too many hours at the hairdresser and too little talking to actual humans.

Radio Shack just fired 400 people via e-mail.

Please, let us pause while I bang my head against my desk. Here is the company's defense:

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.

I, for one, am not impressed. We warned them to check their e-mail before, so it's okay! And then we didn't even provide a human to answer questions, we set up an intranet site. How progressive and technologically aware they must be at Radio Shack.

Radio Shack, you are not making Evil HR Lady's job any easier. I am supposed to be the Evil HR person, not you. How can I be considered the authority on the evil side of HR when I would never imagine doing such a thing?

Here is what the e-mails said:

The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.

The thing that amazes me the most is this is not single person's decision. There were meetings about this. Finance, HR, IS (remember--employees could ask questions on a website!) and the CEO had to agree to this. (Well, IS didn't have to agree--they just had to carry out the plan.)

Of course, the CEO must be new at his job since their previous CEO resigned in February after "questions about his resume's accuracy." Oh my word, has Radio Shack's HR department never heard of a background check?

I'm sorry, I have to end now before my blood pressure goes through the roof. What are the take away's from today's post?

1. Don't work for Radio Shack. Sure the severance package was okay, but talk about tacky.
2. Do not fire via e-mail. I don't care if you warned people in advance, just don't do it.
3. I was concerned that after a few weeks I'd run out of material. Thanks to people like this, I can blog forever.