Senior staff believe that dismissing employees by email is unacceptable

No matter how its done, telling a staff member that they have lost their job is never an easy process but the survey, carried out by YouGov, has found that 98 per cent of managers agree that it needs to be done face to face.

The appropriate way to dismiss someone has come to light after it was revealed that a number of army officers were sacked through email. The officers were give one year’s notice and were advised to ‘start planning their resettlement’. The Ministry of Defence has since apologised for how the matter was handled.

When asked out the incident, 51 per cent of the participants in the YouGov survey explained that they felt outraged and that it was completely unacceptable to act this way.

Although dismissing staff through email was clearly thought to be wrong, the survey revealed that 31 per cent agreed that writing a typed letter to the employee was a better option. Only 2 per cent agreed that email was an appropriate way of sacking an employee.

By Lauren King