Fired by podcast!

Perhaps the most misleading heading I've used since starting blogging many years ago!

If you are interested in managing redundancy in these difficult times then look no further than the following podcasts courtesy of the CIPD.

Managing redundancy - part one

Managing redundancy - part two

Stealing 'company data'

According to a USA survey of nearly 1,000 employees laid off last year, six out of every 10 employees stole company data when they left their job.

Key reasons for stealing company data include: use the information to get a new job, start own business, or for revenge.

The data stolen comes in a wide-range of formats - customer data, contact lists, employee records, financial reports, confidential business documents, software tools or other intellectual property.

For more details see Workers 'stealing company data' (by Maggie Shields, BBC News: Technology).

Web 2.0 and redundancies

It looks like Web 2.0 tools, especially those related to social networking, may have a part to play when many workers lose their jobs.

This is the view taken in an article in The Sunday Times yesterday.

The article centres on the founder of LinkedIn - Reid Hoffman.

For instance:

As unemployment has risen, the [LinkedIn] has tweaked some of its services to help jobless executives find stop-gap contracts or consulting work.

For more details see: Networker Reid Hoffman seizes the day by James Ashton for more details.

Redundancy drill

Did you hear about the one where employees of a historic department store in Hexham learned that they were being made redundant after responding to a fire alarm?

According to reports from the BBC (News: Business), bosses at the almost 189-year-old Robbs store deliberately set off the fire bell to clear the building of customers and get staff together in one place.

It is believed that management took the approach so that staff would hear first hand about the closure of the retail outlet, rather than on the news later in the evening or the next day.

Accordingly, not everyone was convinced that it was best method of breaking the news.

See Fire alarm signals time on Robbs for more details.

UK bosses would like to make yearly redundancies

According to a survey featured by the BBC News: Business website, more than three quarters of UK bosses think their companies would benefit from an annual quota of staff dismissals.

Chief executives believe an annual cull would boost both their firm's productivity and financial performance.

However, the vast majority of senior executives would not bring in such a system as they did not want to introduce "a climate of fear".

For more general details see the following article - Bosses 'want annual staff cuts'.

The actual survey on which the article is based was compiled by Hudson and can be downloaded here.