Talk about a nastygram from cyberspace. On Tuesday, about 400 employees at RadioShack (NYSE:RSH) were supposedly sent the following email: "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."
After that warm and fuzzy missive, the press has taken RadioShack to task for its obvious lack of tact in delivering pink slips to its employees. In any case, this unfortunate event is the least of RadioShack's problems.
A spokesperson from the company stated that employees had been forewarned that layoffs would be made electronically, and if employees had any questions prior to the notification, they could ask from a company intranet page. Unfortunately, that explanation did little to placate criticism that the overall approach was incredibly impersonal and disrespectful to the recipients of the emails. A University of North Texas professor stated that he had never heard of such a large electronic layoff before.
This current embarrassment comes at a sensitive time for an embattled RadioShack. Its store base is struggling, and it just lost a CEO who inappropriately beefed up the credentials on his resume. Shortly thereafter, the company's CFO took off for Western Union, which is soon to be spun out from First Data (NYSE:FDC).
To be fair, the email snafu could clearly have been handled more professionally, but outgoing employees did receive a couple weeks' pay for each year served. Additionally, the matter's significance is outweighed by the need to revitalize store growth and profitability trends.
Julian Day was recently hired as the CEO responsible for implementing a turnaround, and his resume is impressive, marked by restructuring tours of duty at Safeway (NYSE:SWY) and Sears' (NASDAQ:SHLD) K-Mart store base. Let's just hope he provided an audited resume; otherwise, there could be a nasty email in his inbox some morning.
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Fool contributor Ryan Fuhrmann is long shares of First Data, but has no financial interest in any other company mentioned. Feel free to email him with feedback or to discuss any companies mentioned further. The Fool's disclosure policy has too much class to fire you by email.
