LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) – Workers at investment firm
Aviva Investors got a shock on Friday when the company
accidentally sent an email with leaving instructions intended
for one departing employee to the entire worldwide staff of
1,300 people.
The firm’s human resources department realised its mistake
and recalled the offending message 25 minutes later and soon
afterwards sent out another email apologising to staff for the
error, company spokesman Paul Lockstone said.
“An email which was intended for a member of staff who was
leaving today was accidentally sent to all Aviva Investors staff
worldwide,” Lockstone said.
“People were pretty quickly aware of the fact that this was
a mistake … I don’t believe any of our staff would have seen
it really as anything other than the mistake that it was.”
The email was a standard message sent to people leaving the
company, covering things such as handing back company equipment
and confidentiality rules, and did not tell recipients they were
fired, Lockstone said.
Aviva Investors is the fund management arm of UK-based Aviva
plc, the world’s sixth-largest insurance group, and
manages assets of more than 262 billion pounds ($420 billion).
It said in January it would shed around 160 jobs, about 12
percent of its global workforce.
Lockstone said he did not know why the intended recipient of
the email was leaving the company.
