One company learned a hard lesson about firing an employee via email.

The company, Aviva Investors, had decided to terminate one worker. The HR folks at the insurer’s asset management division, fired off an email to the unlucky employee announcing the end of their relationship and asking for company property and passwords to be returned.

The email also somewhat coldly reminded the worker not to spill any company secrets or proprietary info after departure.

The problem (aside from the fact that this Aviva employee is out of a job) is that the email was sent to all 1,300 employees at the Aviva division.

Workers arrived at their offices on a recent Friday morning to find the termination notice in their inbox.

HR soon learned of its foul up and sent a follow up email apologizing to the 1,299 employees who hadn’t been sacked.

No word on how Aviva’s handling the HR employee who made the mistake and likely irreparably damaged company morale with the click of a mouse.