Microsofties Can Keep Severance Overpayments
|
News Commentary. So, it looks like Microsoft will let laid-off employees keep their overcompensation. |
I haven't spoken to anyone from the company about what I've affectionately called Severancegate, so I'm relying on Joseph Tartakoff of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Microsoft Blog. He quotes Lisa Brummel, Microsoft's senior vice president of Human Resources, as saying that fired employees can keep the cash.
Among the 1,400 former employees, 25 received too much severance—anywhere from a couple hundred bucks to $5,000. And the company already had paid more to 20 undercompensated former Microsofties, Joseph reported.
I do feel for Microsoft. This was the company's first-ever mass layoff, so there wasn't a whole lot of corporate experience with handling this kind of messy situation. I'm surprised that problems only affected 45 people.
The mishandling has generated all kinds of unnecessary bad PR.
"Microsoft could have gotten ahead of this story and looked good. Now they just look reactive to bad press coverage," Michael Gartenberg tweeted early this evening, Feb. 23.
How right he is. The company should have let those overcompensated employees keep the cash. Say no more. Nothing. Microsoft wouldn't want to set any precedents by putting on positive spin. People leave the company for all kinds of reasons, and this could happen again.
In the aptly titled blog "Microsoft Releases Severance Debacle Service Pack," John Paczkowski writes:
At some point over the weekend, the cost of the PR nightmare those repayment requests created became equal to the total cost of the overpayments, making their further pursuit even more foolish than it was originally ... we're talking $125,000 here, max. Hardly worth the beating the company's taken over the debacle since it was first reported.
But there was a Microsoft "do the right thing" opportunity here; let leak that some employees had been undercompensated, which the company quickly remedied.
What person really checks severance? I wouldn't be surprised if most of the 45 people, whether they got too much or too little, hadn't noticed. The money comes in by direct deposit, you're in shock from being laid off and feeling glad for any severance. Who really does an accounting? Would you? I would just assume that the company got the amount right, particularly a big operation like Microsoft.
Instead, Microsoft is in reactive mode, again, and that won't erase the initial bad impressions.
Microsoft Watch readers offered varying opinions about Severancegate. I share commenter Phil's assessment of what went wrong: "The people responsible for the mistake were probably just trying to cover their butts by asking for the money back."
Surely somebody risks getting fired, particularly for the amount overpaid.
Commenter Jack made me laugh: "Advice to anyone who has just been axed—if you were paid by direct deposit, close that bank account immediately!"
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com.]
Related Posts:
- Should Fired Microsofties Pay Up?, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 23, 2009
- Microsoft Cuts Its Future, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 27, 2009
- Whom Would You Lay Off at Microsoft?, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 26, 2009
- How Grim Is Microsoft's Future?, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 22, 2009
- Microsoft Q2 2009 by the Numbers, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 22, 2009
- Microsoft Knuckles Down for Hard Times, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 22, 2009
- Steve Ballmer's Memo on Microsoft Layoffs, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 22, 2009
- Quick Take: Microsoft Earnings, Layoffs, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 22, 2009
- When Mini Speaks Layoffs, I Believe, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 22, 2008
Comments (8)
You reckon nobody checks their severance? I was laid off and spent months working through the calcs and holding my employer accountable for every last cent. I'm an engineer! It scored me over $10k. I even demanded (and received) payment for additional accountancy costs due the the mess they created. That cheque (for several hundred dollars) was referred to in the accompanying letter as being for "defective administration". I do hope the auditor quizzed them on that.
BTW, the employer was the Australian Government!
Posted by Lissajous | February 23, 2009 9:09 PM
Joe says:
"I do feel for Microsoft."
So do I. But what I feel for Microsoft is contempt.
Joe says:
"This was the company's first-ever mass layoff, so there isn't a whole lot of corporate experience handling this kind of messy situation."
(Gee, Judge. Sorry about running into that crowd and killing 35 people. This is my first-ever time avoiding a dog in the road, so I don't have a whole lot of experience handling this kind of messy driving situation. I mean, forget about the people I killed and maimed. Don't you feel for ME?")
So what you're saying is that all that blather about "information at your fingertips" doesn't matter if one's head is up one's rear end?
(I'M a PC. But YOU are FIRED!)
"Information at your fingertips." Hmmmm, isn't that called Braille? Sorry, Bill and Steve, it's already been done. And they didn't need to lay anyone off to do it, either.
(Information at YOUR fingertips. Jelly donuts and dreams of world domination at OUR fingertips!)
Paying that ad agency $300 million, and paying Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to discuss taking a shower with your clothes on, looks even MORE incredibly STUPID than it did before.
(Companies are laying off en masse, people are losing their retirement money and their houses, but we can piss away hundreds of millions of dollars and not even miss it!)
Posted by Philosopher | February 23, 2009 9:40 PM
Philosopher stated:
"Paying that ad agency $300 million, and paying Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to discuss taking a shower with your clothes on, looks even MORE incredibly STUPID than it did before."
.
Paying the extra severance is a real bargain in comparison.
Posted by JM | February 23, 2009 10:21 PM
Whew... I'm glad some people didn't have to give up the "laptops"...it would not be the same here.
snicker snicker sarcasm
Posted by Ralph | February 23, 2009 11:58 PM
@Philosopher, regarding your comment:
'Joe says:
"This was the company's first-ever mass layoff, so there isn't a whole lot of corporate experience handling this kind of messy situation."'
It seems we have a new requirement for Microsoft Dynamics:
Requirements:
Windows 2008 Server or better
SQL Server 2005 or better
Experience with one or more mass layoffs
Keyboard
Mouse
Lets look at it programatically:
The following method calculates severance pay:
float severance(Integer employeeId)
Since Microsoft must have fired someone in the past. Lets take prior experience:
severancePay=severance(firedEmployeeId)
That should calculate the severance pay for any John or Jane Doe fired in the past. Now lets make another method
float[] severanceMassLayoff(Integer[] employeeIds)
Please take note that it takes an array of Integers and returns an array of floats. How does the body of this method look?
float[] severanceMassLayoff(Integer[] employeeIds) {
// init code ommited
for (id in employeeIds) {
pay[employeeId]=severance(id);
}
return pay;
}
Since it calls severance for all the employee Ids in the array and we know the old severance method works(since they've fired people before). Then this should work without error too!
Was it really that hard?
Posted by Gerardo Tasistro | February 24, 2009 10:47 AM
From what I understand they failed to calculate the number of weeks of employment if someone left and then restarted. They got paid from their initial start date, not their restart date.
My guess is it was an ad-hoc query given to someone who didn't really bother to think about it. Then nobody checked their results. I bet the original layoff calculator was written in VB 5 and they never updated it.
Posted by billybob | February 24, 2009 12:28 PM
whoever made this decision should recompense the MS shareholders, the severed with a conscience, if there are such people, will give it back anyway!
Posted by RightPaddock | February 24, 2009 6:47 PM
Lisa Brummell, the VP of HR should be fired. After the layoff day, there was a Q&A day with the executives, she showed up in shorts. Cna you believe it? I understand you are a VP and a cool dude, but atleast show some respect. She is the culprit of all this crap. I think Microsoft is behaving too nicely with its executives. These VPs are over pampered and think they rule. In essence they are spoiling the culture. I love Microsoft but cannot stand VPs like Lisa.
Posted by guest | February 27, 2009 4:08 PM