CitySimon

This morning I came into work and found that four of the guys here have been "let go".

They had done nothing wrong. They had not been fired for doing anything wrong. They were just "let go"!

Obviously, we have no union (such a dirty word over here) to fall back on. These guys went from being employed full-time to being unemployed through no fault of there own (Corporate re-organisation is the phrase being used).


I am starting to understand why people over here say that you should try to have 6 months worth of pay saved up as a backup. There is simply NO job security. The employer is not obliged to give any notice at all to employees.

The story is that, as we work in IT, the released people would have access to do things that they should not to our computers...

Am I missing something here? When I worked in England a number of people lost there jobs through reorganisation, continued to work through to their final date (looking for new jobs on the side) and left at the end of that time without a problem.

Do US companies mistrust there employees so much that they feel the need to escort people out rather than give them the dignity of being able to serve out a term of notice while they are looking for a new job or even to say goodbye to there former collegues?

I have to wonder, if they mistrust employees to sabotage the company after being released, how much do they actually trust there employees at all?

Not happy!

Celsius

Welcome to the US! I've heard of people who've been escorted off the premises on the day they've been made redundant. Not because they became furious at the news. It was just the way the "management" handled the situation...

snowbunny

Yes, this is common in the high tech/IT industry.

A lot of the people who do resort to backlash against a company are folks who've been worked 100 hour weeks to complete a project, with promises of rewards, only to be sacked after they are no longer needed.

Since we fall into the grey area between "professionals" protected somewhat by accreditation (AMA, ABA, professionally-licenced engineers) and those somewhat protected by labour unions, where they haven't been dismantled.... well....

lee_in_nj

Not to sound heartless, but are you new to the industry? I see this every other week.

CitySimon

Worked in IT for 5 years in England. Been at this company for just over a year.

Like I said previously, I'd never seen it in England and, interestingly, nobody at this company had seen it since they joined this company either (however, it might be worth also mentioning that the company was involved in a management buy-out back in April).

Welcome to Corporate America!!!!

Partystar

Yep, the same thing happens at my hubby's work.

britvic

Off thread here, but bloody cool Avi Lee

Kate2112

As harsh as it appears it is good business practice to remove sacked IT/Management/Key personnel from your business immediately. Trust doesnt come into it. People in these positions can balls your business up by action/words if they are allowed to work notice. It is happening a lot more often in the UK. I know its harsh from the point of view of the employee but those two weeks notice are wasted time from a business point of view. Sacked individual uses the time to
1. Tells everyone in the company how badly treated they have been - negative moral.
2. Spends most of their time using company resources to get a new job.
3. Can poison company clients with their negative experience of how they have been treated.
4. Actively sabotage company business.

They should be given the salary in lieu of notice. Not pleasant but this is the world we live in.

Ben

My husband works in IT and it happened in the UK too. However, it was more normal for it to be when a person had found another job and was handing in their notice. They were told they couldn't work their notice but they would be paid what the company policy was for giving notice. But there definitely have been times where if people were losing their jobs just because of downsizing or reorganisations that they would be called into a meeting on a Friday afternoon and that was it - they wouldn't be back on the monday.

Notice wasn't always given in the UK for none IT companies too - Birds Eye for one would tell you the day that you were finishing that you were laid off.

Partystar

Yeah, I can see that. That being said, they should get at least 2 weeks pay & be allowed to say their goodbyes, before they shove them out the door.

snowbunny

Being treated in this way, though, can only make the employee who might have been fine with being let go, get angry!

Companies that do this also earn a very bad reputation as places to work.

The one time that this happened to me, I was off sick that day. I was asked to come into work on a pretense. I took my then five-year-old with me and she was bewildered at how suddenly mommy did not have a job. I had no notice to change phone numbers (at her school, doctors etc) and couldn't even get my personal effects that day; I had to come back another day under supervision to do that. AND I was expected to transfer the work I'd been doing to another colleague, all under supervision. We disappeared so quickly that colleagues at other work sites and customers were left hanging wondering where we were. Worst of all my husband still worked there so I had all of the "visibility" as a spouse (who could come visit, go to parties etc) so had all the recourse you site. But I took none of it, of course!

This also makes employees who remain behind (and are possibly the key employees the company wants to retain) begin to look for another job so they can exit humanely, have a goodbye lunch, etc. It begins a mass exodus.

Kate2112

It's not an employee friendly practice and of course there are people who wouldn't do anything to sabotage their ex companies business. However there are too many people who have done exactly that and its just not worth it to the company. The downside for any company who does this is that they may lose key people who dont want to wait for the ax to fall on them and jump ship just in case or because they are pissed off with the company's business practice, but business being business they know that no one is irreplaceable.

Its a tough world of work out there, all we can do is protect ourselves the best we can. Which goes for employee and well as employer.

Jerseygirl

...and not even allowed back to their desks. Personal belongings were packed up and sent to them.

snowbunny

That depends. Some employees aren't readily replaceable -- I call them Mack truck employees. If they were to be hit by a Mack truck -- business would be completely disarrayed.

Some people try to bulletproof themselves by becoming one of these employees, and one of the key ways of doing this is designing something and then refusing to transfer the knowledge to ANYONE. When you work in such an environment, it's very frustrating because management wants some overlap in knowledge but the key employee will rebuff you at every turn if you are sent to ask for same.

I think creating such an atmosphere is NOT in anyone's best interest. It's not hard to find out which employers are overly harsh with their employees, and not only do the best people avoid working there, but they boycott them from a consumer angle as well.

Some employees spend lots of company time learning technologies completely irrelevant to their current job in order to be ready to leap (or be pushed) to another company. Again, this costs a company money. If a company wants an employee who's extremely well versed in a niche area they need to give that employee some form of extra protection (maybe severance pay) or else the employee will either outright refuse to do the work or will not do it well.

I'm speaking from experience in watching fellow coworkers, not in my current job, but in past jobs.

lee_in_nj

In IT theres no possible way you can risk anybody in this situation even sitting down at a company computer for 5 minutes for obvious reasons.