This is to make sure all relevant parties are on the same page. The suggestions for how to make sure an employee doesnt think a neutral/good meeting is a termination here are fantastic, but then how do you request to meet with someone regarding an actual termination? And at best when you go to your boss and ask if theres anything you can prepare for the meeting, youll at most be told no but dont worry. I went through a very similar layoff process while working in the US and yeah, it was totally excruciating. Its just the way I (and apparently many others) am wired. My boss is a chronic Hey, do you have a minute? type, and it is never anything problematic. Jerk. Maybe the person issuing the invites really isnt doing it deliberately, but if we look at it from a different angle: Would you invite a superior to meet with you without any hint as to the topic? The next principal that came in could not understand why a lot of us would ask if we needed to bring a union rep with us or if we needed to assert Weingarten or why we asked if the meeting was disciplinary in nature. (We are remote with a one monthly in-person day). I was Individuals who work in HR act as a resource for both employers and employees for a variety of But it turned out, he wanted to let me know what a good job I was doing and to make sure I wasnt worried about being fired. It is because my manager created a culture of mistrust where she would lie to my face about how she had saved me from getting fired over something that she did. I have had mystery meetings in which layoffs were announced, site closures were announced, informing me of PIPs, informing me of bonuses, informing me of promotions. Like, say you just had a meeting with a client who was [unhappy?] By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Are we all fired?? So the meeting with HR last week wasnt brought back up, I sent all my documented between myself and HR to manager. It could be really. Shell be in our office soon. I had the same feeling in my Old Job someone got fired, I was clearly annoying management, and they asked me at the end of the day if I was willing to come into their office. I highly suggest preparing No.4 from @Hilmar's answer: Prepare for the worst. My family was adamantly against that, but Alison pointed out- after some back and forth emails to get more info- that they hadnt been job hunting at all/in years so their advice wasnt based on experience. Im not alone! Me in internal mental state: huh? The first time I went through it I genuinely believed it was a consultation but now I feel like they deliberately draw it out like that so that by the time it actually happens everyones so jaded they just want it over with. I did appreciate that, but I still remained a bit on edge the whole time I was there. Reward your staff based on individual interests 9. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Except I was so relieved that I agreed on the spot when he threw in casually that they would of course raise my salary something like 3%, in line with inflation. My original salary was set as part of a college program, and it was extremely low. I even got laid off by way of my manager swinging by my desk and saying, Hey, can you help me with something real quick? Sure. I think assert Weingarten rules means, like having union representation or investigation protocol using union rules. WebOperations Management; Operations Management questions and answers; Cap your company has just gone through a union organizing campaign. The last time I went through a restructure they made a similar announcement, but left the no one is getting laid off bit until the end. I know I can personally be better about giving people a heads up about what meetings are about, but Ive found that even when I explain the reason and its nothing bad, people still worry. But, as godawful as that was, in some ways it really increased my confidence around last-minute meetings/getting fired anxiety. Give employees real choice and real voice 11. Politics latest: Chancellor to meet regulators in bid to tackle cost No real advice here, just additional sympathy. Ruth Mayhew has been writing since the mid-1980s, and she has been an HR subject matter expert since 1995. It really could be entirely harmless, and the HR person might be there not to check on you, but to check on your boss. Have everyone write Tuned In on a piece of paper and keep on their desk. meet with my boss until he sends an agenda Not worrying the meeting would be Boss has resigned and were firing you became very hard. Im terrified Ill be fired. Its funny, this can work both ways. Well, yes, but thats only one of many, many possibilities, most of which are actually more likely, and few of which are actually about me. Worst is many small business owners who make everything SO personal, or blame you for their poor business decisions or mismanagement of the business. People legitimately need to know when you are available, but they dont necessarily need to know what an existing appointment is about. At this company there arent many bees and its been OK, but I still remind myself to not panic. And it was about how I should take breaks at work and try to eat snacks to keep my energy up lol. A friend of mine a fellow teacher once had a similar experience. I think that due to the reality that while very often there can be agendas included there are also enough times like above where they really cant be. Based on published research as well as data we collected from nearly 200 employees on important topics to broach in a 1:1, we have identified 28 (WTF, autocorrect?!). One time I was late to work and as I made it to my desk, my phone rang. All this to say, Alison is probably right that youre probably not getting fired but if you think your boss is a monster like mine then start taking home your photos/plants/diplomas. Is that normal? It turns out he was resigning, which wasnt a shock. If you do care, you will have to terminate employees sometimes and you will do it with the utmost respect. The Workplace Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for members of the workforce navigating the professional setting. Surprise Meeting It is understandable if it needs to be rescheduled in a specific week, or if it doesnt In a virtual setting, working hard may come with playing hard. Most of my one on ones do in fact have agendas (often just informal ones i.e. 529: Agreed to by a record vote of 219-208, after agreeing to the previous question by a record vote of 214-206, on Thursday, June 22, 2023. Even with all the wisdom I was already gathering from your words, Alison, it took many many meetings before I could completely squash my surge of unreasoning worry when I was (yet again) part of a last-minute all-team invitation to a meeting with people 3+ levels above me in the org chart, in a room named The Lions Den. If I get a no topic invitation, I ask what its about. It turned out I was sacked, but they were giving me 4 weeks notice. OOFF I feel this heavily. OMG Im going to use that in the future! That was how they handled our layoffs at exJob. Ive started saying Im going to send you a meeting invitation so we can go over (insert topic here) before I even send the invitation. It was the lack of context for the call that freaked me out. This comment section is making me feel like thats wildly abnormal (both as a general practice and as something to feel totally fine about). This is a letter from someone who was terrified they were about to fired despite good performance reviews, a recent raise, and literally no indication there was a problem. Agreed. Turn this sad reality into a game by trying to fool each other into thinking youre frozen. The only other time I have seen a large impromptu meeting was: I keep notes about anything Id like to discuss, and she does the same. She messages me out of the blue, especially given that we really hadnt interacted all that much, to ask if I had time to meet. ? (So I just called that team member right away and got it handled. I really love it when my manager at least says can you meet at x about (very high level topic)? Or, if they cant be specific for reasons, at least say all good things or something like that. I dont think Ive ever called (or been called into) a meeting that was totally out of the blue (usually someone mentioned it as some point in a previous meeting/interaction so I had some idea of what was coming) but Ive definitely had workplaces where it was perfectly acceptable to ping my boss and say hey, do you have some time to hop on a call?, (I feel like this will be perceived as me being sassy but Im really not, I promise! Granted its on a more personal level as it just seems like my break ups all begin with that question so now when a friend uses it to more ask can we chat/hang out in call? my hackles raise a bit and I can feel myself tense up for no good reason. I had one where the whole (small) department got to hear some bad news about a coworker. It was so clumsy that I figured if it were bad news about me he wouldnt have the nerve to do it. Thats 100 percent true! It was just incredibly surreal to have that worst case actually play out.). God, once the whole team had an impromptu no-agenda meeting at the last minute, only to show up and be told one of our coworkers teenage daughter had died so she would be on bereavement for several months. It was not worrying at all, and Id strongly recommend it. Managers should have a weekly one-to-one scheduled with each direct report. There are times when unfortunately confidentiality is required, but its not that often. My direct supervisor is a nice guy but completely clueless when it comes to this kind of thing! But irrationally they can fire you for anything! Im halfway through a lengthy probation period at a new job, and everything has me twitchy about being fired. Its absolutely a trauma response that I cant get over, because theres never been safety or resolution since. Can you make an attack with a crossbow and then prepare a reaction attack using action surge without the crossbow expert feat? My only comfort is knowing that they dont fire people here without a months-long PIP in place, so the first meeting wouldnt be the final meeting, but I have no clue what everyone thinks of my work, or if they even think of it at all. Less funny then. After the 10 minutes of HR stuff, I was then told to gather my belongings and leave while everyone else in our group was in a (fake) meeting away from their desks. I joined a company which went through a big restructure/re-org five years ago and people are STILL traumatised by it, and I have several people on my team who immediately process any change as, oh god, theyre going to lay us off. If Im honest, I swing between feeling really sympathetic to them, because OMG what a stressful way to live, and impatience because it is an awful lot of Emotion to cope with as a manager (and its also frustrating newer members of the team who cant understand why the older members of the team are so resistant to change some of them have told me that it feels unnecessarily dramatic and it means their concerns suck up a lot of time.) But its tough as HR because if you *always* put what the meeting is about when its not bad, then they will notice when you break the pattern (when it is bad). I have higher ups who will schedule meetings that just have Their Name-Your Name as the subject and no additional information. Damn, dude! @aleppke: I think it's true that with this much notice, the content of the meeting is not likely to be "you're fired". how do I respond to employees asking if they should be worried about an upcoming bad-news meeting? Therapy & a better company has helped but I still struggle. He did not explain to him what the meeting was supposed to be about, something I wish he did. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies. She replied that no, it can wait, just see me first thing.. Right, but only if people already had that fear. The performance of the human resources department is vital to the success of employees, their longevity, long-term growth and execution of goals set out by department managers. Every time I see their number pop up my anxiety flares. She was the owners relative and the owner did not care how she acted. If you see people around you losing their jobs (as this LW did), its a lot harder not to jump to the worst-case scenario. I could accept a transfer to another department or be laid off. When its been a man, everyone has seen it coming for a long time due to long-standing publicly acknowledged issues. I was about to say the same thing, since this stood out. Same! Maybe it can. (I had been at the job only a little over a year and wasnt quite sure of myself yet). Plus, I have never been able to get a good paying job since (it was an extremely small field that I cant get back into). Yes!! What made it worse was that this meant there would usually only be one meeting room big enough for us still available and unclaimed, because it was on the fourth floor and somewhat inconvenient for most teams. Come up with a list of three to five items using the list below for ideas. Why in the heck would he call it that??? WFH started on the Tuesday after a long weekend. Im still confused though. When we cant take the stress, we just start joking about needing to bring our purses to the meeting sometimes it helps just to know others feel the same fear. MANAGERS: Roy/McGovern 1. It was very much something very mundane and boring although I think I mentioned something about feeling anxious because I noticed whenever he wanted a quick chat afterwards he always made sure to add a little something about what it was, even if was like new project, which I appreciated. I was asked to schedule a meeting to discuss a project with myself, my boss, and another coworker. Some were just kind of shell-shocked. Meeting invites with no agenda or Topic. my coworker answers questions directed to me, social media post trashing a colleague, and more, updates: I secretly moved peoples desks two inches, coworker keeps stealing our snacks, and more. We got a departmental meeting request, which wasnt entirely rare. I remember the two times it was Something. Im a doc taking care of medically fragile patients and when I have to call a family member, I always start with This is Dr. Jay and your dad is fine because I know my name strikes terror into their heart. The Friday afternoon before, we were all told that we have to be in the office at 8 a.m. on Tuesday for a mandatory meeting. 28 Questions to Ask Your Boss in Your One-on-Ones - Harvard Regular status reports, information sharing, deadlines, and budget assignments during projects keep busy HR staff on track and accountable. So this may be very location and industry-specific, but at least where Im from they NEVER do layoffs on a Friday, much less in the afternoon. I worked at a theatre in March 2020, and when we had to switch to WFH I remember my boss (who was in his late 60s) sending me a short email saying that he would be calling me at x time the next day for a chat. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. CEO freaked out when a new hire quit, brilliant employee is horribly inappropriate, and more, updates: stopping a nickname, taking over a deceased coworkers office, and more, update: our new admin crashed the company car and lied about it, my coworker keeps asking me for personal favors. LOL!! 1. Human Resources WebF&B manager: Cooks or coordinates all meals, snacks, and refreshments. I was so frantic and caught up in being late, and the presumption I would be scolded, that I forgot it was my own damn birthday. Im sharing this exchange (with the writers permission) because its something lot of people worry about. By Hannah Thomas-Peter, climate change and energy correspondent. Firings dont happen out of nowherenot unless something dangerous, criminal, or egregiously unethical has happened. One them could have been in a position to give me bad news about my project, if not my job. Everyone-in-the-group meetings, near the end of the day, with anywhere from a half hour to a half-day of warning, but not often more. Or they might have news that they think Ill be happy about when in fact no not at all (like when they announced that they were closing the Paris office, they thought wed all be thrilled to WFH but I was not at all). As a manager, my reasons for saying something like, Hey can you come to my office when you have a chance? always means I have something to discuss thats non-urgent and wont take much time, so doesnt need a formal meeting invite. Piled things under your desk and out of sight to look like your office was cleaner than it was? Pro Tip: Surprise your team by randomly showing up to a video call in costume! Not for me. . Hollywood Meetings And a 10 min meeting for a re-org is just ridiculous. a list of topics to be discussed, nothing fancy), but not for an impromptu meeting like this. I have a colorful work history (combination of poor life choices and living in a rural area with only office/computer skills) and have had the fired/laid off/company closing meetings many times. skilled? Had the boss set their schedule to private for appointment contents then this whole issue would never had been. Its impersonal, but sometimes that is better actually, because its not really about you personally, its just business and them having to downsize.
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