Today Business 2.0 released the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2006.
Among the boors, buffoons and blunders my personal favorite and winner of the Dumbest Moment, Human Resources award.
From: RadioShack
To: RadioShack employees
Subject: Your former jobIn August, RadioShack fires 400 staffers via e-mail. Affected employees
receive a message that reads, “The work force reduction notification is
currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been
eliminated.”
These are at least honorable mention list
And don’t forget, you only need one kidney…
In July, bankrupt Northwest Airlines begins laying off thousands of ground workers, but not before issuing some of them a handy guide, “101 Ways to Save Money.”
The advice includes dumpster diving (“Don’t be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash”), making your own baby food, shredding old newspapers for use as cat litter, and taking walks in the woods as a low-cost dating alternative.
In related news, the Department of Corrections has announced that death-row inmates will now be required to pedal stationary bikes to power Old Sparky…
After Bank of America announces plans to outsource 100 tech support jobs from the San Francisco Bay Area to India, the American workers are told that they must train their own replacements in order to receive their severance payments.
Keep up with the Worst HR for 2007:
More Bad HR – All Your Information Are Belong to Us
Worst HR (2007) – The Flounder Award
A Higher Bar 
January 24, 2007 at 8:28 am
Wow, that’s pretty bad…sending e-mails to people to let them know they’re terminated?! As for training one’s own replacement, talk about adding insult to injury. What can HR be thinking when they make moves like this? (I know, I know…they’re NOT thinking).
January 24, 2007 at 10:33 am
In that situation I would train my replacement to the best of my ability. However I would be training them in the fine art of extended lunches, places that are safe to sleep in the office and techniques to look busy in between solitaire games.
January 24, 2007 at 11:25 am
You read this stuff and wonder how HR can be so removed from any sense of human decency. While they are certainly capable of stupid moves all on their own, all too often, they are just the fall guys and the approval for each thing they do comes from higher up and legal. Even more degrees of separation than Kevin Bacon from the poor worker!
January 24, 2007 at 1:12 pm
One of my colleagues did a riff on this Radio Shack event a few months back…
January 24, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Most people don’t realize that HR represents only one entity and that is the company. The primary purpose of HR is to ensure that the company doesn’t get sued. Especially from bone head decisions from upper management like we find here.
January 24, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I am in definite agreement with what has been said. Human Resources is, of and in itself, one department that receives a majority of the ire from disgruntled employees and outsiders looking in. Perhaps we need to rearrange our terminology and start thinking of it as worst human capital management.
January 24, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Wow… this is funny and sad at the same time. Great read. Thanks.
January 24, 2007 at 5:33 pm
[…] 24th, 2007 Anthony over at A Higher Bar blogged this Business 2.0 story on the 101 Dumbest Moments in History. His blog focused on some of […]
January 24, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Are you sure the first one’s real? I don’t doubt that HR departments are capable of doing something that bad but it’s almost word-for-word what the captain of the Vogon destructor fleet says in Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “Regrettably, your planet is one scheduled for demolition.”
January 24, 2007 at 9:22 pm
As bad as the first one sounds, it is true. The layoffs took place in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Being from Dallas, the story made the local news relatively quick.
January 25, 2007 at 1:30 am
That was realy bad 🙂
January 25, 2007 at 3:23 am
at first I’m laughing but I realized that these things are not funny.
January 25, 2007 at 3:49 am
Haha, that’s a bit like the company I worked for, where they fired all the employees accidentally, and then had to reemploy them the next day. HAHAH 😀
January 25, 2007 at 10:53 am
[…] Worst HR Ever […]
January 25, 2007 at 11:02 am
I think this is horrible,i would never want to be in their places.imagine if you have a family to look after and than suddenly in one day you find yourself on the road,WOW!! how can anyone be that hard!!!!
January 26, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Is it any wonder why HR has a bad reputation in so many places with bone heads like this in the profession ?
August 9, 2007 at 5:02 pm
There was a legal firm in Manchester that made everyone redundant via text message. Asking employees to return the mobile phone in the post and expect collection of their company car in the coming days.
December 6, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Ouch. Can one say… harsh? LOL, I can’t imagine companies actually doing that to their employees. Is the Radioshack one for real? They need some talent management instruction.
February 6, 2008 at 9:48 am
Hi all,
the situation is more bad at Sonicwall where the hr is Meenakshi Banjan. does she know the HR dept actually works?