Yesterday was the day for me. I was a senior director for a SaaS company that provides HR solutions.
The termination process started the day before with the dreaded calendar invite from the HR VP for a 'quick sync'. Dreaded as the rumor mill was rife with the news that the company was staring at a 15% work force reduction.
The video call started right on time. The HR VP was looking off camera – reading a written statement that was obviously on a secondary monitor.
I wonder how she would react if this was an interview and the candidate was looking at a secondary screen? I guess the candidate would not get a passing grade if he or she stumbled over words like she did.
The HR VP ended the obvious legal spiel stating she had always enjoyed working with me. In reality she's never worked with me unless you count passing each other in the corridor during our occasional office visits over the last two years that I was employed there.
All in all, the whole reading took a minute or 90 seconds and the meeting took two (start to finish). The only thing the meeting did was confirm the termination. All other pertinent info – severance, COBRA was to follow in an 'HR packet'.
My opinion – this was a rank bad performance both by the company and the individual. Company for insisting that terminations are best done on Fridays via a video call. And then packing the schedule back to back making folks hustle through the call. HR VP for not making eye contact throughout, not even bothering to memorize her script.
I would have felt more respected and the process might have felt more empathetic via a 2am mass email. What do others think? Have you experienced a email termination of services?