Okay we understand that companies making HR/payroll mistakes are not a big deal. But in a move of bad judgment combined with lousy PR, Microsoft Inc. wrote to some of the 1,400 employees it laid off last month, stating that because of an administrative error it had paid them too much severance and now wanted the money returned.

Microsoft Senior Vice President of Human Resources Lisa Brummel said that the overpayments ranged from hundreds of dollars to $5,000 per employee. But last week, she must have realized that obviously they got a lot of bad press, worth more than the dollar amounts they lost. She agreed that this was a “unique population” and said “I don’t think it’s worthy of us asking them to make that payment back to us,”

So the software giant had to do a huge about-turn last week and Brummel had to “personally called 22 of the 25″ people who had received notices (that they would have to pay back the overpayments) and told them that they can keep the money.

An additional 20 employees were underpaid severance, and Microsoft has now paid them what they were owed. Brummel also assured that alert systems had been put in place to try to ensure that the situation would not happen again.

Not one of Microsoft’s best moments. But atleast they paused to act a bit thoughtfully.

Via : Seattle Tech Report