Even more reason not to go this route.

Well, when they renamed it “human resources”, they obviously took out the humanity.

No, it’s not.

Being fired is what happens when you lose your job because of your own actions. Like you keep being late, you’re always rude to everyone, you are caught stealing or something like that.

Being made redundant is what happens when you lose your job through no fault of your own. Like if your company can no longer afford employ everyone, or when two companies merge and they no longer need any staff.

Perhaps in other English speaking countries they refer to losing your job through no fault of your own as being fired, but in the UK, we make a distinction.

The person laying me off spent the majority of the 20-or-so minute meeting telling me how hard it was for THEM. I didn’t think it was wise to say “stop sniveling, I’m the one who’s leaving here without a job” but I can tell you that that was pretty close to the top of my thoughts at the time.

Indeed I’m sure it probably WAS quite hard on my supervisor to fire a number of his staff, and in a way the emotional inversion of the meeting, where he obviously expected me to tell him things would be all right for HIM, actually *did* make it easier to move on. Being fired by a colored light would probably have left me full of rage but I’d sure have no further interest in working for a company that used such a method. I wonder whether the company using this scheme will pay a heavy price in employee morale and respect for the company among those whose jobs they intend to preserve — I like to think that talented and creative people with even a speck of empathy won’t stick around at a company that’s so monstrously insensitive to its employees’ feelings.

I also work for a… “controversial” company, for various reasons, but at least I don’t try to rationalize away their constant attempts at screwing the workforce. Man up, son.

I’ve known companies who have made people redundant by revoking their access cards to the office, and even by text message.

To be honest, I have no idea how else you go about announcing layoffs like this that doesn’t suck, but this definitely isn’t the way.

Regarding the word “redundancy”: that isn’t a euphemism, it’s a very common work in British English and everyone knows what it means. It isn’t like “downsizing” or the even more hideous “right-sizing”, its meaning is clear.

Technically, under UK/EU law, a *person* cannot be made redundant, only a position. That’s why they had the three colours:

* Red for “your position is unique and we don’t need it any more”
* Yellow for “you are one of many with the same job title but we are going to reduce your numbers
* Blue for “your position is staying in the new structure”

The 90 day consultation period will be when all the Yellows will get to reapply for their jobs, competing agains their existing colleagues with the same title for their jobs. There will probably be a voluntary redundancy option for anyone who decides they don’t want to go through that.

As someone who’s been through that process, I do not envy them. The uncertainty is really nasty.

Here are the three worst “automated firing”-type stories I’ve heard (the first two happened to friends of mine, and the third was once common practice at a company I worked for):

1. Everyone had an electronic keycard to get into the office. My friend came to work one day and his keycard didn’t work. He mentioned it to reception, at which point security came out and escorted him to his desk to collect his things. This was how they handled all layoffs.

2. A company, who had recently hired a lot of new staff, suddenly fell on hard times. They gathered all of the employees into their atrium, gave them sealed envelopes, and had them open them all at once. The letters inside told you whether or not you were fired.

3. The company I worked at would put your layoff notification in your mailbox. Our mailboxes were the usual open-slot types, so you could see what was in it. The envelopes were always delivered at the same time, at about 3:30, and they were BRIGHT RED. It was very likely that you could be in a meeting at that time, and almost everyone on the floor would know you got canned before you did.

It didn’t take long for everyone to realize that the list was in alphabetical order, and seeing that realization come over people whose names had been passed up was as bad as waiting for your own place in the list to come up. I heard they chose the cafeteria because it was the largest room that had an exit directly to the parking lot.

The same company used to hire temporary workers for the peak season in the Summer, then lay them all off right before the Christmas holidays so they wouldn’t have to give them holiday pay.

It has been debunked by the company itself and by the rest of the British press. BoingBoing, will you consider adding a note to the original post mentioning that?

http://everythingeverywhere.com/responsetodailytelegraph/

Here in Socialist UK that is one of the rights you have. The company has to do the uptmost to keep you on employment, and one of their strategies is to see who would want to stay and who would prefer to take his money and go elsewhere.

The process is not as portrayed.

Boing Boing needs to add a note.

(This is why we badly need to reinvent unions for the digital age. Unionized companies cannot pull stunts like these, they have to go through a proper process and cannot humiliate faithful workers.)

THERE–ARE–NO–LIGHTS!!!

Been there, seen it, done it. Then you get re-hired at twice the pay as a “consultant” because they can’t get along without you.

The ones who stay after something like this are disspirited drones. People afraid to rock the boat, and people that were seen as no threat to their superiors.

The company is doomed, dump your stock now.