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Cold, uncaring and impersonal is a padlocked door...
For ten years Paula Deen co-owned the restaurant Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House in Savannah, Georgia with her younger brother Bubba Hiers. They closed it down last Thursday morning.
No problem there. If you want to close down your business, you have every right to close down your business. It's how they chose to do it that's under the microscope.
The backlash has been public and fierce.
First, the employees were not told the restaurant was closing. They got the news when they showed up for work Thursday morning. Doors were locked, appliances were being hauled out. Severance checks were given in the parking lot.
Simultaneously, a short message was sent out on Facebook from a Deen representative. "Thank you for 10 great years," it read. "Uncle Bubba's is now closed."
Ahh...social media, the hiding place of cowards who exact their damage from behind a gigabyte wall. Shame on leaders who do the same.
Some business leaders would say that the Deen's handled things the right way. The thinking is that if you tell your employees you're closing they might start leaving when you still need them, they may work less enthusiastically and/or, worse case scenario, they might sabotage the business out of spite.
All of those outcomes are certainly possible, but mainly depend on how you've treated the employees up to that point. If you've treated them poorly then you should worry. If you have not, then these arguments are weightless.
Generally, if you show goodwill to employees they will show goodwill back. Be honest with them and they will be honest back. If you show loyalty to employees they will typically show loyalty back.
You know-you make your bed, you sleep in it; you reap what you sow; what goes around comes around...all that.
When in doubt, err on the side of respect.
The reason the Deen's closed the restaurant is pertinent here, though not for obvious reasons. A spokesperson said they will "explore development options for the waterfront property on which the restaurant is located."
Remember, if the Deen's are opening another business on this property these very people may be their future employee base. Treat them honestly and generously on the way out and you have a chance that they will enthusiastically return. Don't and they won't.
Why on earth would they trust you again?
Now in defense of the Deen's they did give people severance. I don't know how generous they were. I would hope they gave them at least a couple of weeks worth.
Severance or not, the vitriol hasn't ebbed. That's because this was all done on the cowardly sneak.
As I mentioned before, no one was given any warning...AND most galling is that Paula and Bubba, the owners of the restaurant, were nowhere to be found. They were skin saving, employee ignoring, arrogant and insensitive cowards, leaving it for their staff to take the heat.
If they had simply shown up last Thursday morning the whole dialogue about them would have changed. I promise you, it's true.
Even with all the aforementioned missteps, if they had been there personally to greet the employees as they came to work Thursday morning, explained what was happening and personally handed them their severance checks, they would have been described as honest, credible leaders who cared about their employees.
A multitude of indiscretions would have been covered had the owners had the courage, the decency, the class, the respect for their employees to simply...show...up.
Indeed, cold, uncaring and impersonal is a padlocked door, but warm, caring and personal is a handshake...even a handshake that says good-bye and good luck.
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