All managers involved in employee compensation will be well advised to study the implications of this protracted legal case (see
here and
here). When senior managers of
Dresdner Bank in London tried to pacify members of staff that were unsettled by news that
Commerzbank was about to make a takeover bid they did not foresee the implications of the verbal promises intended to calm the nerves of their employees. They would not have expected that two trials in the British courts would have considered their statements to be a legally binding contract that even the dramatic upheavals of the financial crisis in the later part of 2008 would not have been able to extinguish.
In a similar vein, all-too-often I find that the coordination between senior management and human resource departments leaves a lot to be desired. In addition, special deals - often verbally - are agreed with staff members that lead to further confusion and mistrust among other staff members that feel that they are discriminated against. In the case of the promises made to Dresdner Bank one could also have said (even without the benefit of hindsight!) that employment prospects during the summer/early autumn of 2008 were already less than rosy and the threatened (or feared) exodus was highly unlikely.
