The text arrived like a digital thunderclap: “Oh shit. I just saw you’re deactivated on Slack… I hope they give you a fat package.”
This was how Adam Boyle, a Senior Success Signature Engineer at Salesforce, discovered his eight-year career at the tech giant had ended. While on vacation. From a colleague’s text.
Boyle was part of Salesforce’s sweeping 10% workforce reduction in January 2023. He hadn’t received a phone call or a Zoom meeting. His termination letter waited in his work email, which he checked only after learning of his digital exile through a colleague.
In a recent Ontario Superior Court decision, Justice Brownstone tackled whether this callous method of termination warranted punitive or aggravated damages. The judgment offers a sobering reality check for HR professionals: while Salesforce’s approach was “not ideal,” the court found it didn’t demonstrate bad faith or constitute “a marked departure from ordinary standards of decent behaviour.”
The ruling raises a disquieting question: Have our standards for “decent behaviour” in terminations sunk so low that discovering your dismissal through workplace equivalent of a digital restraining order is now considered acceptable?
I’m reminded of a colleague who worked at one of my previous employers for ten years. Returning from vacation, he arrived early at the office only to discover his security pass deactivated. A helpful co-worker let him in, where he found his computer credentials disabled. His manager, responsible for notifying him of the termination, arrived nearly an hour late. For sixty excruciating minutes, this professional sat in limbo, piecing together his employment status through digital breadcrumbs.
These digital discovery terminations share a disturbing commonality: the employer’s systems were updated before human decency was extended.
In rejecting Boyle’s bad faith claim, Justice Brownstone considered the magnitude of Salesforce’s layoff — approximately 3,000 employees. The judge accepted that individual termination meetings weren’t feasible at that scale. This practical acknowledgment of mass termination logistics should give HR professionals pause.
When did scale become an acceptable excuse for abandoning compassion?
Modern HR technology enables companies to disable access to workplace systems with surgical precision and automated timing. Yet this technological efficiency often outpaces our commitment to human dignity. The Salesforce case suggests courts may be adapting to this new normal, applying a more forgiving standard to digital-first terminations than many professionals might expect.
Even Boyle’s own immediate reaction undermines his later claim for damages. After receiving the termination text, he responded: “Yup, I’m officially part of the 10%. No worries. On to better things for sure. I was very unhappy in my role at SF over the past year, so this is a good thing.”
His measured response might reflect the emotional detachment many professionals cultivate as corporate armor, or perhaps genuine relief. Regardless, it illustrates the challenge of proving heightened distress in termination cases.
Justice Brownstone concluded Boyle’s “distress and feelings of hurt, disrespect, and anxiety are understandable feelings that accompany terminations and do not go beyond what would normally be expected.” That’s not breaking news — some level of emotional distress has long been considered an acceptable byproduct of employment termination by the courts.
But before employers take this as blanket permission for digital dismissals, consider other aspects of the case. Salesforce’s actions were distinguished from truly egregious cases where employers have walked long-term employees out the door, failed to pay required amounts, issued incorrect records of employment, or intentionally misled employees.
The case also highlights subtler aspects of proper termination practice. While Salesforce made an error in calculating Boyle’s severance pay, they corrected it (albeit a year later). The court viewed this as an honest mistake rather than bad faith. This suggests courts may tolerate administrative errors when corrected, even belatedly.
Most significantly for HR practitioners, the ruling underscores the critical importance of employment contracts. Justice Brownstone deemed Salesforce’s termination provisions unenforceable due to ambiguity created by competing language across documents, including references to “at-will” employment inappropriate in Canadian contexts. This contractual failure cost Salesforce far more than a properly handled termination conversation would have.
What should HR professionals take from this ruling? Perhaps this: while courts may not penalize companies for digital dismissals during mass layoffs, the financial consequences of poorly drafted employment contracts far outweigh any efficiency gained by avoiding proper termination conversations.
The standard for “decent behaviour” in terminations may be evolving, but human dignity shouldn’t be sacrificed on the altar of scale or efficiency. Technology that makes it easier to cut digital ties should be matched with processes that preserve human connections.
After all, how we end professional relationships speaks volumes about our organizational values. When your systems notify colleagues of a termination before management does, what message does that send about how your company values people?
The digital door may slam shut with algorithmic precision, but the echo of how it closes will resonate through your organization long after the terminated employee has moved on.
