UK firm's 1,300 staff accidentally given marching orders

LONDON: 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 realized its mistake and recalled the offending message 25 minutes later and soon afterwards sent out another email apologizing 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. (Reuters)