Microsoft’s severance clawback

The computer giant shows how not to lay off 1,400 workers

“It sounds like an early April Fool’s joke, but it’s no prank,” said Mary Kathleen Flynn in Seeking Alpha. Microsoft sent a letter to some of its 1,400 recently laid-off employees asking them to return some of their severance package. The letter apologized for any “inconvenience” caused by the “inadvertent error.” Well, “inconvenience is one way of putting it. Adding insult to injury is another.”

It only took two days after the letter appeared on the Internet for Microsoft to reverse course, said John Paczkowski in All Things Digital. And it was probably an easy call: The “cost of the PR debacle” has to be more than the $125,000, max, it overpaid those 25 employees, who each get to keep the extra $4,000 to $5,000 now.

The aborted severance clawback was a “public relations disaster for Microsoft,” said Emil Protalinski in Ars Technica. But Microsoft is also making some good moves on the long-term employment front—its “Elevate America” program aims to give IT training to up to two million Americans. With most jobs today requiring “some form of tech skills,” that could really help.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Besides, this is Microsoft’s first-ever mass layoff, said Tom Corelis in Daily Tech, so its “ask-nicely policy” for overpayments was largely untested with sacked employees. And given the “hurricane of bad press,” Microsoft probably won’t make this same mistake with the other 3,600 employees it's going to lay off in the next 18 months.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us