Should management explain why an employee is suddenly "gone".

In My Humble Opinion
1

There was a guy in our call center who had worked here about a year. He was well liked and really fit in. He never missed a day of work and was a good employee. Yesterday, as work ended, everyone said “bye, see you tomorrow”. Well, he wasn’t at work today, so we just assumed he was sick, although he has never been sick since working here and appeared very healthy.

Now, there is a strange woman at his cubicle boxing up his personal belongings and taking them away.

Naturally, everyone is concerned and wants to know why this guys stuff is being hauled away. My co-worker asked a supervisor if this (ex) employee was okay, and was answered with a cold “yes”. Well, at least we know he didn’t die in a horrible accident or something. All of management is tight-lipped. I can appreciate confidentiality, but I think that management at least needs to give us something to go on. Am I wrong in thinking that there are some circumstances in which management needs to provide at least some information as to why an employee left?

Eric

2

At my last job, I had a conflict with management that needed to be kept under wraps, and it was a “here today, gone tomorrow” sort of deal. AFAIK, no one knew why I left, and I’m sure, if my supervisor gave a reason, it wasn’t a truthful one.

In good employment circumstances, no one leaves without saying goodbye. You can assume it was some sort of unhappy separation.

Is there a way to contact this guy outside of work and ask? He’d probably be more than happy to explain.

3

[QUOTE=rostfrei]
… Am I wrong in thinking that there are some circumstances in which management needs to provide at least some information as to why an employee left?

Eric
[/QUOTE]

Yes, you are. Management should always make some announcement about an employee leaving, but it needed be very informative or truthful.

Employees always leave for opportunities better suited to their abilities (even if those abilities are getting high and watching t.v. all day), and everyone in management wishes them well.

I guess management would have to say something else if an employee were escorted from the building in hand-cuffs, but not just because the ‘opportunity’ came up very suddenly.

4

This kind of just happened to me. After 5 1/2 years at my job, I was suddenly fired (for very unjust reasons, which is a whole other story…) The next day the middle-manager guy just told my co-workers that I was “no longer with the company,” and that’s it. Although I am sure that my ex-boss has told some people negative things about me, because she is petty and hateful like that.

Anyway I called my closest co-worker and told him what really happened, and told him to tell our other team member. Another co-worker contacted me to see how I was doing, which was really nice too.

In my case, my boss fired me for very questionable and possibly illegal reasons… so there isn’t really anything she could say to explain why I was gone without making herself look like a complete asshole (which she is).

5

This exact thing happened to me two weeks ago tomorrow, just a couple months after they did it to our receptionist. No, they do not have to explain to anyone, or give a reason to the employee. I too was “let go” after two years of perfect attendance and excellent work product. It sucks, but it’s legal. Employees actually have few rights.

6

[QUOTE=j666]
Yes, you are. Management should always make some announcement about an employee leaving, but it needed be very informative or truthful.
[/QUOTE]
My firm employs about 30,000 people in the U.S. I don’t want some piece of spam everytime someone leaves.

My practice is slightly more manageable at about 750 people. When there is a termination ‘for cause’, there is no announcement (although the grapevine may get the story). On rare occassion (something high profile), we may get something like

*When that day actually comes, it will be more like "d_odds is leaving the firm Friday, Feb 29. Then on Monday, they’ll send out an invitation to celebrate my leaving

7

This happened several times with my old company. Thank goodness for new jobs! I left that place because I witnessed this happen to 2 very hard working and friendly people, who just happened to clash with their peer-manager who was in another work clique.

That particular manager had the ear of the higher-ups and off went our ENTIRE editorial department. I came back from vacation and suddenly one of the girls I really liked was gone. I was informed in whispers by the other office mates that we were not to talk about her or email her. It was a “pretend this employee never existed” situation.

That was just the beginning. Then an email went around saying that some “former employees” had been spreading rumors and that they were probably psychotic and we would all be best to stay away from them and their type of behavior. This email was drafted by the owner of the company, and did actually accuse a former employee whom I highly respected of being psychotic.

We left in droves after that.

If management hadn’t acted so secretive, insulting, and petty I would probably have been able to see their side of the situation. Sometimes when there is conflict between workers, especially among management, somebody needs to go. But sending out insulting emails and acting as if nothing ever happened made us feel like we were owned by a group of 10 year olds.

8

Where I work, if there’s something not right about an employee leaving, they send out something like, “As of Feb 28 Lemur866 is no longer employed at VeryBigSoftwareCompany. If you have any questions please see me.”

I have no idea what they’d say if you went to the HR person’s office and asked what happened. Probably repeat the email verbatim, minus the “please see me” part.

If people leave on good terms to go to another job or whatever they usually send out a goodbye mail themselves.

9

That happened where I work. The official announcement was just a short email to everyone on our team “X is no longer with the company.” We, of course, had already heard the reasons behind it through the rumor mill and the company was actually in the right in the matter.

10

[QUOTE=D_Odds]
My firm employs about 30,000 people in the U.S. I don’t want some piece of spam everytime someone leaves.

[/QUOTE]

Well, yes, that makes sense. Probably no more than a hundred people, and often far fewer, need to be informed about any one person leaving. A department, or even team, wide announcement is a smart gesture; it’s just so much better for morale.

However, I think it really is a bad idea to give any specifics on why the person is leaving, unless the story is going to be on the front page the next morning.

11

Several of my coworkers have been fired over the years for various infractions. In each case, we were only told that the company “had to let [coworker] go.” No other explanation was given. New employees are always upset by these terminations. If they don’t know why the coworker was fired, how can they avoid making the same mistake?

Since then I’ve come to realize that my employer doesn’t just fire people out of the blue. If a coworker commits some serious offense, his/her manager will speak to the coworker and give him/her the opportunity to resolve the problem. Many employees are given several chances to change their behavior before they’re actually fired. Sometimes I wish the managers would give us more information, but that’s difficult to do without violating the coworker’s privacy.

12

It is amazing to see how many similar stories there are to mine. Almost a year ago, I was fired because I had been looking for another job. I had my letter of resignation prepared, but never got the chance to resign. So, to my former coworkers, I up and vanished.

My reason for leaving? I worked with a bully. A psychotic guy who read my emails, checked messageboards that he knew I visited so he could find things over which to harass me, sabotaged my work by changing computer settings and adjusting files, downloaded porn on work computers while on the clock, and even threatened to kill me for telling on him. I informed the boss of his behavior every time it happened and the boss did nothing.

I can’t imagine that there was a meeting the following Monday where the boss said, “We had to fire Charger, because he didn’t like being stalked and getting death threats from Psycho Drama Queen. We could have kept him on staff if I hadn’t ignored the problem like and inept, condescending prick.”

I often wonder what the explanation was. When a coworker vanished about six months earlier, the boss said that the terminated employee had been telling him how to run the place. I found out later that it was because he told the boss that he should have given praise to all of the employees who had helped on a major project. That guy got blamed for a lot of non-existent problems, after he had been fired. So, I would imagine the same was said of me. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my bully’s real psycho behavior was blamed on me, after I was gone. Meh, the truth with come out. I hope when my former bully snaps, it happens when the boss is right there and a little angel shaped like me appears on his shoulder and says, “truth hurts like hell, don’t it?”

13

I had a great consultant working under me in a mega-corp. I needed her work desperately and she was good at it. One day I walked in and she was gone. Our entire team of about twenty people was called into a meeting and told within ten minutes that we absolutely should not find out how or why it happened. Of course, many people in the company knew why and I found out about a year later. She got drunk at the Christmas party (how cliche is that?) and propositioned a person who happened to be a visiting vice-president very aggressively. I was hurt on a few fronts. She never propositioned me although I would have never taken her up on it. Also, I was screwed taking up her workload. My only other employee was good but he was basically autistic and wanted to camp near the Grand Canyon by himself for a few months and he was gone in short order too.

14

[QUOTE=Charger]
It is amazing to see how many similar stories there are to mine. Almost a year ago, I was fired because I had been looking for another job. I had my letter of resignation prepared, but never got the chance to resign. So, to my former coworkers, I up and vanished.

My reason for leaving? I worked with a bully. A psychotic guy who read my emails, checked messageboards that he knew I visited so he could find things over which to harass me, sabotaged my work by changing computer settings and adjusting files, downloaded porn on work computers while on the clock, and even threatened to kill me for telling on him. I informed the boss of his behavior every time it happened and the boss did nothing.

I can’t imagine that there was a meeting the following Monday where the boss said, “We had to fire Charger, because he didn’t like being stalked and getting death threats from Psycho Drama Queen. We could have kept him on staff if I hadn’t ignored the problem like and inept, condescending prick.”

I often wonder what the explanation was. When a coworker vanished about six months earlier, the boss said that the terminated employee had been telling him how to run the place. I found out later that it was because he told the boss that he should have given praise to all of the employees who had helped on a major project. That guy got blamed for a lot of non-existent problems, after he had been fired. So, I would imagine the same was said of me. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of my bully’s real psycho behavior was blamed on me, after I was gone. Meh, the truth with come out. I hope when my former bully snaps, it happens when the boss is right there and a little angel shaped like me appears on his shoulder and says, “truth hurts like hell, don’t it?”
[/QUOTE]

Companies have very different personalities and some are psychotic. I interviewed at a very small software company once (about 30 people and virtually all were foreign except for the CEO). They joked in the interviews that people kept to themselves and didn’t really talk to one another. Unfortunately I got hired. There is some old Richard Prior movie where the running gag is “We are taking it with us!” when they are buying a new house. It turns out to be literal when they show up when absolutely everything including the light fixtures are gone. That is what this place was like. They absolutely 100% did not want you to talk to anyone - ever unless you had and absolute need to. My second week at the place, I got a request from my boss to take a look at a database issue. I had never seen this database but I was eager. More importantly, I did not have a password to it or even knew where it was. I e-mailed the administrator to it to get a path and password. Within 5 minutes, I was swarmed by 3 upper level managers asking me why I was asking an Indian contractor to do my work for me. No matter what I said about access or passwords made a dent in their logic.

The space they rented was huge because they were ambitious from the beginning. Unfortunately the business did not pan out the way they anticipated. I was put in one lonely cube surrounded by about 20,000 square feet of empty space at the back of the building with construction materials laid on the floor and electrical wiring dismantled and spread all over the place.

I got called into HR at my one month mark and was asked what I thought my coworkers thought of me. Remember that we couldn’t really talk to anyone unless it was absolutely essential. I replied that I didn’t really know anyone but that I liked everyone I was allowed to talk to and I hoped everything was going well. The response was “Right”.

At week six, they called me in and fired me. I demanded to know why. They refused to give any reason whatsoever. I sat there for an hour and repeated my demands to know why. They still refused to tell me anything. Finally the HR person started giving me career counseling on other fields I could look into. I guess that is why I am a highly paid analyst in the same industry now.

15

I know one man who was fired for violating his company’s sexual harassment policy. I know a woman who was fired for showing up to work drunk, and another man who was fired for embezzling from the company.

Any employer who even whispered anything about those instances would be sued from here to eternity. Better to say nothing.

16

[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
Companies have very different personalities and some are psychotic. <snip>
[/QUOTE]

Ain’t that the truth?

Companies have no obligation to tell employees why an employee is no longer working there (I think privacy laws actually prevent companies from doing this), but I usually make a point of telling co-workers if I left because a company sucked (peons gotta stick together, you know). No, I’m not a team player or an ass-kisser. :smiley:

17

I worked with a woman who just up and vanished one day. Never came back to work. I’ll admit, I kinda figured that she was going to get fired because this woman went from being a really great worker to a come to work high, totally fucked up person none of us recognized. I think the guy she was seeing was a dealer and she fell into the lifestyle. If you asked what happened to her, Upper Mgt would give you the Stare of Death and say “It’s confidential.”

There’s a good ending to this—my hubby talked to her last year and she’s clean, working with a consulting firm he deals with and is back on her feet. Of course, she refuses to have any dealings with anyone but him from our office, but I don’t blame her.

I worked with another woman who fell off the face of the earth too, but she not only vanished from the office, she and her husband pulled their kid out of school not long after her last day and left the area. I think they moved out overnight because I used to drive by their house every day to and from work and the next day I went by their place, it was empty. And again, no one ever really found out why she left but I have my suspicions that her husband was in trouble with the law.

18

Count me in the camp which says that there is no obligation to tell the employees why someone is gone.

When the organist at the church I attend was fired, the announcement was completely bland and colorless. But I suspected that the organist had been fired because he was not present when the announcement was made, and there was no “let’s thank the organist for his service” applause session or comments about what his future endeavors might be.

I later had this confirmed informally–and then formally, oddly enough. But I bet there are still people who don’t know/understand that the organist was fired not because of any lack in his keyboard skills, but due to serious lacks in his people skills.

19

As an employer while there is no obligation to tell employees why someone is gone it is a good idea to keep them in the loop if you want a happy, productive workforce that trusts their employer.
No details need to be given but simple facts of whether the person left or was let go. If they were let go was it performance related, HR realted, or staffing level/reorg related. If they left on their own accord was it issues with the workplace or external reasons.
Again, no specific details need to be given but simply being open and honest with employees goes a long way with their loyalty towards you.
If you just fired someone because they were caught stealing or harassing someone else it’s easy to tell the others they were let go for HR reasons and leave it at that.
By saying nothing and giving no reason you now have employees thinking the company is cutting back on staff and they could be next severly damaging their productivity.

20

When one of my coworkers was fired recently, the bosses called us in the office into a conference room and let us know that he had been let go. They expressed it in very general terms like this:

‘We have had to let <name> go. While our business relationship with <name> did not work out, we wish him well in all future endeavors. We know that many of you considered <name> to be a friend. Please understand that while we do not wish to interfere with your personal relationships, you are not to share any proprietary or project information with <name>.’

And that was that.