A "Good Yarn" is Dangerous with Workplace Announcements!

A friend of mine who I made whilst we were doing our Legal Practice Course* together long, long ago often reminds me of something that I said on my website profile from my career before I became self-employed.

It went something like this: “I enjoy a good yarn”.

I can see the tongue-in-cheek aspects of this statement, particularly for a solicitor, but I meant it at face value: I do enjoy a good story and, if you’ve followed me for some time, you might have noticed that I have quite eclectic reading tastes from Dame Agatha Christie and F. Scott Fitzgerald, to Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler, all the way to film novelisations and the occasional comic book (sorry, we’re meant to say “graphic novel” now, aren’t we?).

As this edition of the newsletter is falling towards the end of National Storytelling Week here in the UK (which runs from 1st to 9th February 2025, so get reading!), I wanted to give you an edition that plays into that, relating to the kind of stories that may be told at work, specifically when a business and a worker or employee go their separate ways.

I’m an Employment Law Solicitor, but I also tend to find myself filling something of a communications role in these circumstances.?

To be more specific, a worker or employee will leave an organisation – often in challenging circumstances – and the organisation may not know what on earth to say by way of an announcement to explain to its remaining staff and third parties why that worker or employee either has left them or is leaving them.

I’ve had to do this in relation to well-known community leaders leaving their posts in situations where they (i.e. not the organisation) have the support of that community, as well as people who you might never have heard of who work in a business.

So, if you’re faced by this challenge, here are some pointers that might help you to ensure that this is a protective work of fact, rather than utter twaddle that could land you before a judge:-

1. Consider whether a statement is needed at all.? The worker or employee might want a statement to be released about why they are leaving, but consider the position before you agree to this.? For example, if you have a longstanding receptionist who has chosen to retire after 35 years’ loyal service, then you might want to do something special to communicate this to your staff.? By contrast, if you have a fixed-term receptionist who has only been with the business for six months, then the significance of a departure statement might not be the same and might not really be necessary, depending on the surrounding circumstances.
2. Keep it neutral.? You might feel that the person was more trouble than they were worth.? Put that entirely to one side, because that outlook is not going to help you to prepare a statement about their departure.? Don’t let things get personal and remember that, often, saying less is more effective than going into nauseating detail or even implying something inappropriate.
3. Thank them for their service.? If nothing else, the person has spent time with you and your organisation, regardless of what has happened to bring that time to an end.? You might feel that they didn’t do much at all, but remember that that is your perception; it is not necessarily a reflection of all the perspectives at play within the organisation and the key here is not only to respectfully say goodbye to a departing staff member, but to maintain the trust of those who are not leaving you.? This does not mean that you must change your perception in this particular situation, but it does mean that, in preparing this statement about a parting of the ways, it would be awkward to allow your perception and only your perception to colour it.
4. If you can’t say something nice about a particular thing that the person did or was tasked to do, then it might be best not to say anything at all or, if you have to address that issue, to keep it very vanilla.? For example, if the employee is being dismissed for capability issues after heading up your Research & Development Team and you felt that they did not do a very good job, you might wish to reduce what you say to “They headed up the Research & Development Team from INSERT START DATE to INSERT END DATE”, without making any statement about their capability at all.? Yes, it’s bland.? Yes, it doesn’t really say much.? However, it is true and it is very difficult for a worker or employee to argue that this sort of statement has in some way damaged their reputation and, by extension, their career.
5. Don’t mix up your reasons for why the person is leaving.? This might sound obvious but, particularly where you're addressing a difficult departure, it can sometimes be challenging to “pin your colours to the mast” over the specific reason why the worker or employee is leaving you.? However, you must pin your colours to that mast! For instance, if an employee is being made redundant, don’t start saying that they have chosen to retire (not least because, despite being an inaccurate description, as retirement is now usually a voluntary decision on the staff member's part, you might be risking a claim of age discrimination from them, to say nothing of unfair dismissal).
6. Don’t get too flowery about it.? If you wax lyrical about how brilliant the worker or employee was, you might be risking people asking “So, why are they leaving?”.? This has a similar impact to drafting a bad departure statement saying all the wrong things, because it does not really defuse the situation and simply means that you have another “communications maze” to navigate with your remaining staff and third parties that you could easily have avoided.
7. As I hinted at in point 3 above, remember that you aren’t just writing this for the worker or employee.? Whilst the worker or employee might have been involved in writing it, possibly due to negotiations surrounding what they want to appear in it, it is ultimately a communication between the organisation and those who need to know what is happening.? For example, if the worker or employee’s departure is likely to affect other staff, for instance if they are an owner of the business or a line manager, then tell staff how it will affect them, how it is likely to affect them, or that it will not affect them at all.? If the reality is that you don’t really know what impact it will have, you might want to fall back on a statement such as “We will notify you about how this is likely to affect your reporting line and your duties in due course”.
8. By extension, be cautious about external communications.? Whilst you might need to tell third parties, such as customers and suppliers, about a worker's or employee’s departure, always ask yourself “Do they really need to know this or can we manage it in a different way?”.? Remember that, once you start circulating communications beyond your team, you’re risking information becoming public knowledge, which opens up practical difficulties, such as customers leaving, as well as potentially even greater problems such as libel and slander, particularly if the worker or employee hasn’t been consulted on what is being said about them.
9. It should go without saying, but don’t lie about or discriminate against the staff member in the announcement.? Once you start lying or once your audience discovers that you are lying, then you have lost them and will struggle to win them back over (if you manage to win them back over at all).? Not dissimilarly, if you start discriminating or unconsciously suggesting discrimination in an announcement, then it’s proven in writing, which is difficult to get away from.? For example, if an employee named Zeltia wanted to reduce her hours so that she could balance her career alongside her family commitments, but she is leaving because an agreement could not be reached, then saying something like “Zeltia has chosen to leave us so that she can focus on raising her family” could serve as a final sting in the tail, particularly if Zeltia already suspects that there might be sex discrimination at play and feels as though she has been forced out of her job.

But, just in case you think that's all, wait for the bonus point below...

It is also natural to feel as though you’re spinning a “yarn” (good or otherwise) when you write these sorts of statements.? After all, whilst some of them do come about from happier circumstances, such as when a staff member is voluntarily retiring after a rewarding time in service, many of these announcements are a result of quite tense circumstances and even negotiations where the relationship between the organisation and the staff member either is breaking down or has broken down.? Remember that you are just managing the fall-out from that by trying to balance the interests of all those who are concerned in this situation: the organisation, the staff member, the remaining staff members and any third parties who need to know.

After all that quite intense focus on crafting fact, rather than fiction, I hope you enjoy whichever “good yarn” you’ve chosen to dive into during this National Storytelling Week!

(*NB: The Legal Practice Course is often just referred to as "the LPC" by those of us who did it. To those who haven't, I often simply call it "my professional training" for ease.)

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