So a friend of mine works at an agency in London [can you tell who it is by the title of this entry? Ha] and yesterday she went to an all office meeting where management were updating staff on the many things they’ve been upto over the last couple of months.
In-between comments about how hard everyone has been working and the pitches they’ve been involved with … they casually dropped in that 12-15 people were going to be made redundant from the Account Service department.
Now obviously people were shaken up by this as …
1 They weren’t expecting it.
2 The Management treated it so casually.
3 They were worried as to who was staying and who was going.
4 It’s a few weeks from Christmas and it couldn’t come at a worse time.
… however by the time my mate got back to her desks, she knew exactly where she stood because her pathetic, wimpy, spineless boss [who sits 20 feet from her] had sent her an EMAIL telling her that she was to be one of the people made redundant. [Given the ol’ Spanish Archer – better known as ‘El Bow’ – hence the piccie above!]
Good on my friend for storming up to her boss and telling her she was a cowardly and inconsiderate person … but yet again, we have an example of a company behaving badly – a company who doesn’t know how to communicate despite being a so called communication ‘expert’.
This sort of thing makes me sick to the stomach.
Sure I understand redundancies happen – and sure the agency in question are having a particularly hard time [which is sad, given the London office has been behind some of the truly great global brand ideas of modern times] but you just can’t treat people this way, it’s immoral.
I appreciate no one likes to deliver bad news and that technology can make it easier because we can ‘hide’ behind it … but these sort of issues need to be handled with care, consideration and empathy – not a 2 line fucking email!
The thing is, of all the industries out there, communication is one of the most reliant on the people who work within it.
Sure there are processes, philosophies and structures that can help shape the ‘output’ of the agency but ultimately, it’s the people within the organisation that have a disproportionate influence on how a company moves forward – and everyone in the industry knows this. So with this in mind, you could almost be fooled into believing they mean it when they say in their bollock mission statements that “Our staff are our number 1 asset” – except too often, their actions prove these are nothing but corporate ego words.
Look, my friend will be fine … she’s very good and will be picked up by countless other agencies … but whether her boss or the agency she represents stand as much chance of moving forward is in question – especially if this is how they think people like to be treated.
We are in the people industry … we are about motivation … we are about understanding … maybe some senior management should be reminded of that – because it seems a higher and higher proportion of them are subscribing to the Donald Trump school of management – where “It’s Just Business” is regarded as a legitimate excuse for any act of wrong-doing.