CNN and USA Today are reporting that RadioShack just fired 450 employees…by email.
The workforce reduction notification is currently in progress…Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.
According to CNN, a RadioShack spokesperson said electronic notification was “quicker.” Though employees were notified in advance (how, by email?) that layoff notices would be delivered electronically, this has got to be one of the more crass firings we’ll remember.
Can you imagine the halls of RadioShack’s corporate headquarters, where most of the layoffs occurred, about 5 minutes after 450 people heard the little “ding” of an arriving email?
So here’s my open letter to RadioShack:
Dear RadioShack:
Firing people by email is many things. Crass. Cowardly. Rude.
It is not, as your spokesperson apparently suggested, quicker. It’s not efficient either. Because now you have a lot of debris to clean up.
Consider the media coverage and your need to do respond. How efficient is that? Consider the damage done to your corporate image. Not very efficient, is it? Consider the stunned employee who learns of her demise from a computer screen. Not very efficient to be dealing with the human reaction, is it? I bet your managers weren’t able to very “efficient” this week. Though you apparently did call the newly informed ex-employees into a meeting 30 minutes later, the damage was done. It won’t be quick to un-do it.
I found myself wondering about the kind, helpful and informed gentleman at my local RadioShack in Peterborough, NH. His name is Roger. Did he get an email from you? If he did, how was his kindness, excellent customer service and knowledge paid back by you?
Firing people by email tells me you don’t understand relationships. It tells me that you don’t particularly value them, either. And it tells me you fail to understand that the relationships you’re trying to create with people you want as customers are damaged badly when you treat your relationships with employees like dirt.
RadioShack, you know how to create unneeded conflict, that’s for sure. If you ever want someone to teach you how to handle human situations so that you’re not creating conflict needlessly, give me a call. I can help. I think you need it.
Appalled in New Hampshire,
P.S. I have no friends or family who are now or have ever been employees of RadioShack. I have no axe to grind, except as a conflict resolution consultant.
Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.
Oh my god! Thank you for making this public. I had no idea. I have been laid off, and it’s never easy, but this is the height of rudeness and tells me that Radio Shack has no idea what customer service really is. If they treat their employees that way, how will they treat their customers? Courtesy is courtesy and rudeness is rudeness, regardless of the recipient.
I hope they take you up on your offer. Like you, my experiences with the employees of Radio Shack have always been pleasant and efficient. As a customer of any business, I want first to be treated like I matter. Shame on the Radio Shack exectives who made this very bad decision.
Verna
Verna, when my husband first told me about it this morning, I thought he was joking!