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The the next time a company’s leader decides to transmit a missive to employees, it’s probably best to seek advice from an assistant to find out if it’s been done properly.
As oilpatch layoffs mount, downsizing with dignity is becoming a challenge
There’s not good way to lose your job, but there are certainly bad ways.
As the stories of mass dismissals in the oil and gas sector circulate with each round of announced layoffs, complaints are emerging of staff being told to be in their offices at 8 a.m. sharp with the door closed. They are able to then wait a couple of hours for “the knock.” That time in employment purgatory lasts until recruiting staff have completed their sombre rounds.
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If not, as Pat Walsh chief executive of Mackie Research Capital discovered, a variety of problems ensue.
This week Walsh sent an interior email with a staff, underneath the subject line “Please visit the attached.” The attached was titled: Summary of Capital Markets: Personnel Changes. Some time later another missive was sent requesting that the email be recalled.
Of course by then it was too late, as word of restructuring plans had been read and analyzed. But there was just one problem: The email was read almost a week before it was said to be released. The personnel changes are “effective as of Feb. 1, 2016,” it said.
One employee termed it “a complete PR disaster. It’s been badly handled.”
And given the state of the investment business and the tough slog that the independents face, the alterations at Mackie Research are extensive. The firm is planning cuts in research, sales/trading and investment banking C in addition to cuts to compensation. The fate of two research associates is incorporated in the balance – Associate 1 and Associate 2 are being terminated. Information on some employees’ compensation seemed to be disclosed
So what went down when the proverbial cat was from the bag?
Mackie Research didn’t wait. Some of the affected employees were “walked out immediately.” Notices with a from the others are being drafted.
One employee said the firm “is in the process of attempting to fix this by reaching out to the people and giving them their documents. However the damage continues to be done.”
Geoff Whitlam, president of Mackie Research said “we made some minor tweaks, but we’ve also been adding staff.”
RBS and heeding its very own advice
Two weeks back the Royal Bank of Scotland achieved considerable notoriety if this advised its clients to brace for a “cataclysmic year” along with a global deflationary crisis.
The bank, which received a comprehensive 45 billion bail out from the British government within the wake from the global financial crisis, recommended that it is clients “sell everything except top quality bonds. This really is about return of capital, not return on capital. Inside a crowded hall, exit doors are small,” it said inside a note that attracted global interest.
While RBS’s view was one of the more extreme to be issued at the beginning of 2016, it’s not immediately clear if the bank included itself when it was advising clients on action to take.
This week, RBS which in the last couple of years appeared to operate on the foundation of never missing a pothole if it could, was at it again with increased bad news C a couple weeks before it releases its 2015 results.
The bank has opted to set aside one more 3.6 billion in anticipation of a success to the total net assets. The charge represents a mix bag of activities including “pension accounting change along with other pension related movements;” and potential litigation associated with U.S. mortgage backed securities. One report said this news and the “combined expected impact” was a surprise.
The news was delivered following the shares hit a six-month low.
In the interests of their shareholders, maybe RBS, that has lost money for the past seven years, can implement its very own advice.
bcritchley@nationalpost.com
