An Australian employee of a Canada-based tech company has received a near-$8,000 payout by the Fair Work Commission after she was fired by email and never heard from her employer again.

Freya Powell was a senior application manager at Kognitiv, a tech firm headquartered in Canada offering predictive customer intelligence tools using AI, and had worked at the company for nearly eight years.

Kognitiv provides loyalty management, data intelligence and activation and partner collaboration to “enable data-driven personalisation and optimisation of the customer journey across its innovative, omnichannel platform”.

Fired by email

In November last year Powell was made redundant, effective immediately, via an email, with the Fair Work Commission (FWC) hearing that delays in the sale of Kognitiv’s Enterprise Loyalty Business made its financial position “untenable” and required immediate job cuts.

All of Kognitiv’s four Australia-based employees were made redundant.

Powell attempted to contact her employer after receiving the email, but had no further contact with the company, FWC heard.

In the 19 March ruling, FWC ruled that the dismissal via email was “harsh” and that it “reflects very poorly on the company”.

It also ruled that it was not a genuine redundancy as the company had made no efforts to try to deploy Powell elsewhere in the company.

“By any measure the procedures adopted in this case were poor and are not excused by the lack of specialist expertise,” the FWC ruling said.

“I find this to be a factor that weighs in favour of a conclusion that the dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable.”

There had not been any performance issues relating to Powell’s time at Kognitiv.

“Despite this, the applicant was sent an email terminating her employment with immediate effect,” FWC said.

“No-one put the applicant on notice that this was occurring.

“No-one spoke to the applicant about the termination even after the applicant attempted to make contact with the respondent to discuss the termination and the payment of accrued entitlements.”

FWC said that Kognitiv had failed to file any material in relation to the unfair dismissal case and did not appear at the hearing.

With Powell not seeking reinstatement and having since found alternative employment, FWC ordered Kognitiv to pay her three weeks wages, equating to just over $7,700, within two weeks.

FWC also heard that Kognitiv no longer employs anyone in Australia, but still services Australian clients through employees based in other countries.

It is not known whether Kognitiv has paid this money to its former employee. Both Powell and Kognitiv were approached for comment.

Musk’s tactics

It’s not the first time a tech worker has been fired through an email.

Last year a former Twitter employee was awarded nearly $1 million after he was unfairly dismissed for not responding to an email from CEO Elon Musk that called on workers to be “extremely hardcore”.

The case related to an email sent by Musk in late 2022, sent to the company’s 270 employees in Ireland, saying that “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade”.

The email ordered employees to confirm they were committed to this vision by clicking ‘yes’ on the email within 24 hours, with those who did not were understood to have resigned.

But this was challenged by the employee, with the Commission finding that the 24-hour deadline was not reasonable, and that not replying to it could not be seen as a resignation.

Musk has been using a similar tactic in his role leading the US Department of Government Efficiency, with workers reporting that dozens of their colleagues were being “indiscriminately terminated by an anonymous email”.