IT MAY sound like an urban myth but some managers have actually resorted to sacking people in the recession by phone or text messages. None of your nurturing talent or reviewing career and out-placement options for these “get-on-with it” managers.

It seems to arise when managers carry out large-scale culls of people with whom they have not worked directly and they simply fail to think out the consequences or personal impact. To these people, a brief group e-mail saying little more than “good luck and goodbye” is their answer to communicating job cuts.

Earlier this year, according to employee allegations, a High Court-appointed receiver involved with the winding-down of Waterford Crystal e-mailed or texted staff with notice that their jobs were gone.

Some of the alleged recipients had worked for the glass factory for decades. The 480 employees had thought that they would be retained while there were discussions ongoing with a potential buyer.

A few days later some of them occupied the receiver’s accountancy offices in Dublin to highlight their annoyance at how their fate was communicated.

That was mild though compared with other recent cases. The HR director of a leading law firm has conceded that policies may need to be reviewed when it emerged that staff left phone messages telling trainee solicitors they were being sacked.

Kevin Hogarth, global HR director at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer which has 28 offices worldwide, said he regretted that some trainees learned they were not being retained after managers left messages on their answering machines that said rather tersely: “It’s not good news but give us a call.”

Three out of four of the firm’s young graduate solicitors were not retained. Some were told face-to-face that they would not be kept on but others who were seconded to clients or working away from the office received the bad news in a brief sentence when members of the “graduate recruitment team” could not contact them.

Hogarth acknowledged that members of his HR team left messages.

“By the tone of the messages and the words chosen, it was pretty clear that when the trainee solicitors did eventually get in contact, it would not be good news,” he acknowledged, adding that, “in hindsight, leaving an answer-phone message was not a good judgment call by the team involved”.

Like many senior managers in recent months, he faced a tricky position trying to balance growing rumours of job cuts and getting accurate information out quickly.

“We were trying to balance competing concerns of speaking to trainees promptly so they heard the news through official channels instead of finding out the hard way,” he added.

Many trainees are seconded out to clients working in their offices, both in the UK and internationally, but Hogarth ruled out sending HR representatives to those workplaces to ensure the news was broken face-to-face.

Another firm that relied on phone messages was British engineering company Laurence Scott, which went into administration. Nearly 80 engineers were told their jobs were gone. Some were sent voice messages but did not receive them and turned up for work only to be turned away by the administrator.

Half of them initiated legal action and secured a ruling against the firm for unfair dismissal, unpaid wages, holiday pay, unpaid pension contributions and contractual redundancy claims. The administrator managed to save some of the jobs so may feel vindicated in the “cruel to be kind” approach to employee communication.

One company though has hailed its use of text messages to sack younger workers as being trendy and what these employees would expect. A shop assistant was sacked by text message because her employer said it was part of the company’s “youth culture”.

The young shop assistant at a Cardiff outlet of the Blue Banana chain, Kathy Tanner was off sick with a migraine attack. Tanner (21) had been working at the shop for about two months.

Her manager, Alex Bartlett, sent the following text message: “We’ve reviewed your sales figures and they’re not up to the level we need. As a result we will not require your services any more. Thank you for your time with us.”

Not quite HR textbook stuff but the company defended the text sacking on the basis that “we are a youth business and our staff are all part of the youth culture. We would rather have spoken in person to Miss Tanner but her telephone was switched off.”

Tanner said: “I don’t think it’s right to just text someone. It’s very impersonal and not at all professional. You don’t expect that.”

She added a not-unreasonable observation: “You’re not allowed to text in sick – you have to phone. The fact that they texted me is a bit of a double standard.” Indeed.

Gerald Flynn is an employment specialist with Align Management Solutions in Dublin.