It’s a cautionary tale for any company that uses an internal payroll site: Watch the info you post and when you post it.

About 50 workers at Sirius XM were laid off Tuesday, a bit ahead of schedule because they logged into their company’s internal Ultipro payroll site and saw their termination dates — Oct. 15 — next to their name.

The company was forced into frantic damage control, as staffers flocked to the site to see if they were among the employees being let go.

First step: Shut down access to the site.

Then, according to reports, management contacted the affected workers and gave them formal notice they were being terminated.

But no company likes being behind the curve on sensitive operations like layoffs.

It’s always a good idea to remember that routinely used technologies can often provide clues to upcoming events. Deleting a user’s access privileges, posting a position on an online recruiting site or making changes to a payroll or intranet site can cause your organization to lose control of its message at a bad time.

Repairing the damage can often be more trouble than taking steps in advance to prevent sensitive information from being spread before you’re ready.

Source: RadioandRecords.com

Tags: intranet, layoff, payroll, site, termination