WHAT HEELS!: You've Got Mail!
"It's bad enough when a company has to lay off employees, but screwing up the announcement of the bad news just adds insult to injury, " fumes VA PR pro Robert J. Holland in his Richmond.com column, "Communication At Work." Noting that AOL "has never been a shining example of how to communicate with people inside or outside the company," he deconstructs the company’s Oct. 15th E-mail announcing that one in five will be fired:
† Even an online service provider shouldn’t fire people via E-mail; people should have been told face-to-face in a videoconference.
†CEO Randy Falco buries the lede – you’re fired! – in the 10th graf.
† The previous 9 grafs are packed with cliched corporate jargon and double-speak ("We fundamentally shifted our business model …"; "We refocused the business around three core areas…"; "Realignment of our costs against these three businesses …").
And here’s the kicker: The E-mail actually suggests that the company will be better off without the people it will fire!
The very next day, writes Holland, "laid-off AOL employees arrived at work, received notification and were told to pack their things and leave immediately."
Well, at least they didn’t advise ex-employees to Dumpster dive so as to stretch their unemployment checks!
I would dumpster dive before I would ask AOL for employment.
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Amen, bro!
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