Tell them early

Yesterday my boss told me that HR will soon contact the agency which has supplied one of our help desk agents.

We have to downsize a bit, just a little bit, which means going for low-hanging fruit such as freelancers. In his case we aim to end the contract around the middle of February.

It's nothing to do with him: everyone likes him and he is very helpful. I had been hoping that we wouldn't need to do this but the wheels are being set in motion.

So, yesterday (Friday) within an hour of being told I had a quick word with him. I stressed that it was nothing to do with his performance.

Later, I  heard from him direct manager that he was quite upset and would have preferred to have been told on Monday.

Maybe. My thinking was that it was right to tell him as soon as possible. The market always picks up in the New Year and agencies start calling (an agency actually called me on Thursday but I wasn't interested). I thought it would be galling for him to reject an approach - which can even happen at the weekends - and then learn the next day that he should have gone with it.

It's never nice (well, for non-sociopathic people) to give this sort of news but it's worse to receive it so I understand his unhappiness.