Employers and employees should consider each other’s point of view regarding working benefits to prevent undesirable dismissals. Story: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/employee-who-got-6-bbq-sauce-as-holiday-gift-says-he-was-fired-for-angry-tweet-1.4752283
Hussein Mehaidli had been working at Fastenal Canada for six years, and he posted a tweet complaining about receiving a $6 bottle of sauce as a holiday gift from the company. The company later found out about his account. Although the district manager and regional VP fought for him, the corporate in the US dismissed him. More on the page, Hussein’s post exposed the sauce brand and created a negative image for the producing company Get Sauced & Spiced Inc.
How should we think about this? Is Fastenal cheap and ignorant towards employee feedback? Or is Hussein having trouble controlling himself on social media?
I see this story, two-sided. And so should the company and Hussein. For a multi-billion dollar company such as Fastenal, giving their long term employee a $6 sauce as a holiday gift seems stingy since we need to embrace the fact $6 is probably not even Hussein’s half-hour working payment. If the company stands at Hussein’s position, they can easily understand why he got frustrated and claimed that he felt disrespected by the company. On the other hand, a complaining post regarding a famous company on a widely used social media such tweeter spreads fast. And the negative impact it can cause for the company is hard to measure. Hussein’s behavior disregarded the company’s welfare and showed a decrease in employee loyalty.
As far as I consider, Fastenal should value employee experience more by researching employees’ preferences towards employee benefits. They should also provide employees with better internal channels to express themselves. Employee loyalty increases when a company becomes more willing to listen and accept critics. And employees should use proper ways to express themselves when they have concerns about the company.
Reference:
Slaughter, G., “Employee who got $6 BBQ sauce as holiday gift says he was fired for angry tweet”, CTV NEWS, January 3, 2020.
Liang Li 