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Lessons on HR practice from the movie, “Up in the air”
The movie “Up in the air”, was released in 2009 and it stars George Clooney who plays
the role of Ryan Bingham and corporate professional in charge of downsizing. The movie
highlights some serious human resource (hr) issues in regards to creation of redundancies. The
issue of laying-off people is often an emotive one in the business world. As a way of diverting
the pressure of firing someone from themselves, the management of most companies outsources
the unenviable task of firing people to someone like Ryan Bingham who is the central character
in the film. He is a hired gun who moves around the country firing people on behave of the
management. The concept of a hired downsizer is not very common in other countries but it is
very rampant in America where the laws on employment are skewed in favor of the employer.
As portrayed in the film, Bingham is very professional at creating redundancies and he
never uses the words “you are fired”. Instead, he studies the employee’s background and them
gives them a speech on how to take advantage of the redundancy to better their lives. However,
things change when the character of a young ambitious graduate, Natalie Keener played by Anna
Kendrick joins the company. According to her, laying-off people should be less emotional and
she sees employees as tools to be controlled for production. She advocates for video-
conferencing as a way of creating redundancies which are plainly inhumane and horrific. As
such, one of the employees she fires via video call throws herself off a bridge.
