It’s not magic, it’s getting disappeared: When employees are quietly canned

A former CPO and current consultancy founder has identified a concerning workplace phenomenon causing dangerous ramifications to processes and culture, with employers urged to review internal processes as a matter of urgency.

The founder of namesake company Carole Cooper Consulting prioritises culture as a core business offering because, as she noted in a recent episode of The HR Leader Podcast, “when people are productive and happy and engaged in the organisations, the organisations and their clients benefit significantly”.

Having worked as a chief people officer (CPO) and been involved in HR, culture and people management, Cooper acknowledged that organisations face increasing demands to properly navigate the increasing prevalence of five-generation workplaces, the dynamic technological landscape, and changing skill requirements.

However, Cooper said that leadership remains the dominant contemporary challenge.

“If you don’t invest in the leaders in your organisations, it is very, very challenging to maintain the culture,” she said.

One of the implications of poor leadership, Cooper noted, was “getting disappeared”.

Reflecting on a conversation she had with an employee during an organisation’s culture review, Cooper said she was told: “People just get disappeared here … they’re here today and gone tomorrow.”

Noting that the term was appropriated from the operation of ICE in the US, Cooper said that, with regard to organisations, the practice sees workers laid off for business or operational reasons – but in the wrong way.

“Instead of going through a proper process with the people, consulting with them and doing the right thing … some people just get a text or an email where they walk into a room and they are told, you no longer have a job. And they sometimes sign a deed, and sometimes they follow the legislation and they are gone,” she said.

“There’s no communication to the rest of the team. There’s no farewell, there’s no thank you for the work that they’ve done, and that then creates fear and anxiety for the rest of the team.”

As its core, the practice allows for toxic cultures to grow.

Reinforcing that it is not the motivation or action itself that is irregular, but the way it is handled, that is the issue, Cooper explained that the practice is often motivated by a fear of inter-workforce communication following a redundancy.

“That comes down to leadership, comes down to fear of worrying about what the people are going to do and say. But if they actually did it properly, people would then become advocates of the organisations versus telling 20 people, 30, how bad it is,” she said.

In this way, the practice often backfires on itself, breeding a culture of distrust and dissatisfaction, while also not stopping colleagues from discussing issues with each other by way of social media and digital messaging.

Further, it opens organisations up to regulatory attention due to the increased risk of psychosocial hazards, work cover claims, absenteeism and increasing staff turnover.

And when it comes to legal action, Cooper offered the simplest solution of avoidance as paying an employee more than what the legislation dictates, but noted this does not address the core, cultural issue, nor is it possible for organisations already facing economic pressures.

However, she noted that following the proper redundancy process is not itself a challenge.

“It’s not hard to do. It takes a bit of time, but you can do the right thing quite easily … if it’s a genuine redundancy – which, from an economic perspective, it’s more than likely it will be – they don’t have an issue with an unfair dismissal because it is genuine,” she said.

“It’s when they are trying to make somebody redundant that is actually underperforming or not doing the right thing and using that to get rid of the person, and then the person disappears, [that’s] where the challenge is.”

In this way, Cooper acknowledged that the practice can also be further abused as a way to silence people who may themselves be speaking up about an organisational issue.

In reflection of this practice, Cooper explained that the organisation is likely to experience significant ripple effects, especially by creating a culture of fear that prohibits people from speaking up.

“It creates anxiety because people are worried about, ‘Am I next? Are my friends next?’ It creates survivor guilt, which is quite prominent when there are mass redundancies anyway. But this exacerbates that,” she said.

“And it also creates staff turnover because the good people will leave, and they’ll get jobs somewhere else, and the organisation is then left with lots and lots of challenges.”

Broadly speaking, this has a significant impact on culture, which, Cooper continued, has “significant commercial impacts on the bottom line”.

Cooper recommended a tailored approach for HR hoping to address the trend with senior leadership.

“I think HR should take a commercial view on it because if you go to the CEO and you talk about the impact commercially on the organisation, they will generally listen to you because the bottom line is what counts, whether it’s a for-profit or not-for-profit,” she said.

“Understanding the commercial impact, talking about that, and then start to work through putting in the right systems and processes for the change to happen.”

Cooper also urged HR to review internal systems, communication frameworks, change management processes, leader engagement and accountability, and whether they have been given the support from HR teams to follow through.

This is especially important for culture, which often operates in a top-down approach.

“What HR could do is, you know, where they are engaged and they are working with leaders and with teams, they can set the standard as to what should be happening,” Cooper said.

“The conversations that they need to have are even more important in how to better engage with people and work with people and deal with people in challenging times.”

In the same way, Cooper noted that having a strong, structured communication and change management framework, coming up with a first step, and actually implementing and embedding it, “will solve a lot of problems”.

“Think about the people and the impact on the people that you’re having in this profession, because you want to make a difference to people and you can make a difference to people,” Cooper said.

“It may be challenging, it may be difficult, and that is what we’re dealing with today. But if you put the basics in place and you have a strong foundation, you can absolutely overcome these challenges.”

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