HR lessons from Up In The Air?

What is the best way to fire an employee?

We are in the business of hiring people, not firing. It falls on the lot of evil HR people on the company rolls to do the dirty job. And a dirty job it is. I have heard of people getting nightmares after having to let people go, during the slump time, in groups at a time. I have heard of HR people going into depression after having to deal with downsizing of colleagues, close friends included. A person, who has not dealt with recruitment, would not know the amount of counseling, hand holding and advising that can go into this process. Then just imagine how devastating firing can be for both parties.

In Up In The Air, George Clooney is Ryan Bingham, the “corporate downsizer”, a terminator with, of all things, a heart. He never says “You’re fired”. Redundancy can be made to sound so motivating when it is Bingham doing the talking. The loss is actually an opportunity toward a brighter future, for time with the kids which dad never had, time to follow ones dreams, time to finally take a break and change ones life as one knows it. If I were fired, I would be happy to be fired by him. He is much in demand, always flying from one site to another, always up in the air, like all the other downsizers in his company.

Enter Anna Kendrik as Natalie Keener, the new trail blazer, new blood, just cant wait to change the world. Firing is not an emotional procedure in her book. She has a new plan to reduce turnover time, increase employee productivity, and drastically reduce costs. No flying around to client sites to fire employees. She introduces video conferencing and proves that it saves time and money for her company. Bingham keeps warning of the terrible consequences but she wins first round.
And then a woman she fires over video conferencing jumps from the bridge and kills herself.

Watch the official trailer of the movie here.

Lets face it, people are being fired left right and center even today, with all the talk of economy returning to normal. While a company might handle some of the financial issues relating to the loss of job the employee has to face, what about the emotional repercussions.

This movie had created ripples in HR circles worldwide, HR blogs all featuring a review/lesson gleaned from it. However the CEO of RiseSmart, a consulting firm in Silicon Valley has this to say about the movie:
“The movie attempts to ground itself in reality by featuring interviews with real people who’ve lost their jobs,” Sathe says. “But that’s about the only thing the movie gets right in its portrayal of corporate layoffs and the human resources function.”

His interview about the 5 myths and misconceptions about HR in the movie can be found here.

All in all, it is a very trying process to fire people, a task HR people need to undertake often enough. It would be good to remember that technology is an enabler, a means to an end, and the end needs to be human. Just like one needs hand holding to get into an organization, much more help is required when one has to leave. And HR has to keep that in mind.