Cafe2Go Podcast #2 – October 2006
Wednesday, October 4th, 2006 by Shel Holtz, ABCIn our second outing, IABC President Julie Freeman, ABC, APR, and 2006-7 Chair Glenda Holmes look at the need for face-to-face communication when delivering bad news to employees, exploring the ramifications of Radio Shack’s decision to lay off employees by email. Also, Eric Bergman, ABC, APR — chair of the Accreditation Committee — explodes some myths about accreditation and introduces October as Accreditation Month.
Podcast: Download (11.9MB)
October 7th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Last lesson learned from #2. Cafe2Go is monthly. (it was part of Shel’s sign off, for those who did not stay listening to the end.)
Knowing monthliness saves listeners from going back more often looking for insights and ideas, aurally, from around the world.
About Radio Shack firing people by e-mail.
As I listened to the discussion between Glenda and Juie, I wonderd how many layoffs and firings of people in the hundreds they had been involved in.
Beause I was listening for “story” and understanding of just how the “face-to-face” they advocated would actually work.
I’ve been involved in dozens of layoffs and staff reductions of a hundred plus, and my colleagues and I did not figure this face-to-face stuff out. We had better luck with white collar than with blue collar, and worse luck with unionized people. By the time the HR people had worked out bumping for 150 unionized workers, details invariably leaked.
But what was more interesting about the podcast was the observation that those who announce layoffs so often do it badly. I expect no better than bad, because most often, layoffs are announced by so-called “human resources professionals” and they are generally unskilled at communicating, and generally not respected nor trusted by their fellow employees. (
(Note; I’ve written this before, people complain, I ask for good examples of first rate personnel departments that exist today, and so far, silence ensues. Examples of high quality, respected, HumanR people whose job is other than doing the bidding of the CFO in order to use staffing levels to manipulate the quarterly results, or similar antics, will be welcomed, of course. Don’t bother mentioning Ford or Hewlett Packard or any of the stock option backdaters)
Departments as a whole — sometimes I can find a skilled individual, usually unhappy and waiting for retirement or a package)
But is the inability to communicate well their fault? Hmmm… maybe an IABC communications department staff professional, or a knowledgable volunteer, can tell us the last three or four or five times IABC professional communications have been prime speakers at personnel specialist conferences and conventions, and taught them how important it is to learn how to talk to four hundred people, face to face, allowing for two way symetrical and asymetrical; communications strategies to be optimized within the synergistic parameters specified by the catalystic benchmarks.
For that matter, what were the last three or four or five times IABC senior leaders explained to senior general management — the men and women who hire professional communicators– the value of running the crisis stuff past real communicators, early, and often, and then listen to the communicators’ advice. i.e. PR for PR.
Radio Shack’s CEO was clearly clueless about PR or he never would have let HR be headed by such a loser.
Almost in closing, Radio Shack’s PR around the layoffs-by-e-mail was just as awful as the layoff procedure itself. Conjecture abounded world-wide about the details, — Julie and Glenda worried about the opportunity to ask questions of senior management; I’m wiling to bet the e-mails were backed up by info packages, and I do know that the e-mails did not come out of the blue.
And in closing… IABC members interested in learning more about follow IABC members’ views on the Radio Shack firings can look into the IABC Cafe blog.
I look forward to further commentary here between now and next November’s podcast.
BAK