Illustration: Suman Choudhury

Folks at the Blue Banana, a body piercing and jewellery shop based in Cardiff, have been seeing red of late. They are under attack from HR practitioners and the lay public alike for their style of sacking employees. They deliver the pink slip via SMS. “We will not require your services anymore... Thank you for your time with us,” read the message.

The company claims that it had tried to reach the employee concerned through more conventional means earlier. But there was no response. Besides, say company officials, sacking-via-SMS is very much in keeping with the “youth culture”. Blue Banana employs about 120 people, many of them under 21.

Critics are not amused. They say that just because SMS has become a way of life, it doesn’t mean that you can treat every situation with a lack of understanding and sensitivity. “No matter whether you are junior or senior, young or old, a dismissal from employment is a traumatic experience,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant Shashi Rao. “You must handle it properly.”

Getting the pink slip via SMS is not new, of course. Forbes reports that in 2004, KEB Credit Service Co, South Korea’s third-largest credit card issuer, sacked some 160 people — a quarter of its workforce — via mobile phone text messages. The Independent of the UK had reported in 2003 that The Accident Group, a Manchester-based personal injury claims firm, had sacked 2,500 people via SMS. The company told its employees that those who were to be retained would be personally contacted. “It is a very cowardly way of doing something and very unfeeling,” said the wife of one of the sacked employees, reported The Independent.

There are several other stories of summary sacking. But what may take the case for insensitivity is the recent booklet handed out to sacked employees by Northwest Airlines. Titled 101 Ways to Save Money (see box), it tells people to search trash and never to go grocery shopping while hungry. “It is disgraceful that somebody at Northwest Airlines would send this out to a long-term employee,” says Bloomberg, quoting Robert Roach, general vice-president of transportation for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

“But this is American culture,” says Rao. “People in India who are concerned about new labour laws should be looking into this aspect too.”

Rao contends that while unionised employees are still protected, such insensitive sackings are happening in India too. “During the dotcom bust, some employees came to office to find pink slips on their tables,” she remembers. “Others had their personal effects packed in cardboard boxes. They were stopped at the reception, given their cheques and their boxes and told to go home.”

People in India don’t like to talk about being sacked. There are those who keep it a secret even from their families. They leave for office every day at the same time they did when they had a job. They return on schedule too. But they spend the time job hunting. The lucky get jobs and things switch back to normal. The unlucky come crashing down when the money starts running out.

Why are managements so insensitive? HR consultants feel there is one basic reason — cowardice. “Most people don’t pick up the pieces and walk away,” says Rao. “They question your decision. They rave, they rant; they beg, they plead. An SMS or e-mail takes you out of the direct line of fire.”

“There is something to be said of family-run businesses after all,” concludes Rao. “In the worst of times, everybody tightens their belts. If there is just one loaf available, everybody may go hungry. But nobody starves.”

FLIGHT PLANS

Extract from Northwest Airlines booklet titled 101 Ways to Save Money given to sacked employees

Get hand-me-down clothes and toys for your kids from family and friends.

Don’t be shy of pulling something you like out of the trash.

Never grocery shop hungry.

Iron your own clothes.

Search the Internet for freebies.

Cut your kids’ hair yourself.

Source: Bloomberg