Position Eliminated
rickam
7 Posts
Hi Everyone! I am new to this forum and have been having a great time reading the posts. Much good advice, and have taken some notes on the finer points of policy wording to implement when I get back to work on Monday. I think I have a question that hopefully has a simple answer-
Our company is downsizing and we have eliminated an exempt supervisory position. The supervisor was offered another position (lower pay and benefits) and asked to give his answer the next day. (The expectation that this supervisor would stay in this new position, if he even started it, is not high. Probably would only stay until he found another job.)
I was elected to drive him home, and he asked me while in the car if he was going to get his vacation. I told him that vacation was not available until it was posted, and it is posted on January 1st. Since he is no longer employed, he will not get his vacation. (In Georgia, vacation can be withheld if the terms are stated in policy. Our policy is lawyer approved and he will not get it if he is not employed and tenured on January 1st).
The next day, this supervisor came in and said he would accept the position offered.
Later on, he came in with a Doctor's excuse to be out of work until January 5th.
Call me cynical, but I believe he is not going to start in his new position but will make a claim for his vacation.
I am planning on advising the following:
This supervisor's position was eliminated. Therefore he is terminated and loses all tenure and benefits. A separation notice should be sent saying his position was eliminated so he can file for unemployment.
When, and if, he begins in his new position, he will be starting out as a new employee.
The doctor's excuse can be accepted as a reason for not begining his new position until January 5th, or it can be ignored as meaningless, since he is not employed anyway.
Thoughts?
Our company is downsizing and we have eliminated an exempt supervisory position. The supervisor was offered another position (lower pay and benefits) and asked to give his answer the next day. (The expectation that this supervisor would stay in this new position, if he even started it, is not high. Probably would only stay until he found another job.)
I was elected to drive him home, and he asked me while in the car if he was going to get his vacation. I told him that vacation was not available until it was posted, and it is posted on January 1st. Since he is no longer employed, he will not get his vacation. (In Georgia, vacation can be withheld if the terms are stated in policy. Our policy is lawyer approved and he will not get it if he is not employed and tenured on January 1st).
The next day, this supervisor came in and said he would accept the position offered.
Later on, he came in with a Doctor's excuse to be out of work until January 5th.
Call me cynical, but I believe he is not going to start in his new position but will make a claim for his vacation.
I am planning on advising the following:
This supervisor's position was eliminated. Therefore he is terminated and loses all tenure and benefits. A separation notice should be sent saying his position was eliminated so he can file for unemployment.
When, and if, he begins in his new position, he will be starting out as a new employee.
The doctor's excuse can be accepted as a reason for not begining his new position until January 5th, or it can be ignored as meaningless, since he is not employed anyway.
Thoughts?
Comments
I'll try not to offend you, but you asked if anyone had any thoughts. I think you're planning on jerking the guy around. Are you planning all of this simply to get around honoring the vacation? Sounds like a great way to send bad vibes and signals throughout the company as well as the community, not to mention potentially trampling on his FMLA rights and his ownership of vacation days. I would not have any incentive to stay with a company who pulled such shenanigans. I also have doubts that Georgia would not require that the vacation be paid out. You mention that you would advise the position had been eliminated, therefore he is unemployed, therefore he has no vacation. Is any of that covered in a policy statement about giving up one's vacation? You've offered another position in the face of a RIF and he has accepted it but has a medical reason for delaying the start date of the new job and you want to ignore that or call it 'meaningless' and have his hire date re-established altogether. Call me cynical (others have) but, I just fail to see anything positive, constructive or particularly ethical in your planning and thought process. Welcome to the Forum as a first time poster. I hope you'll continue to participate.
Don D thoughts are relevant. I wonder about the expectations you mentioned that the supervisor would not stay in the job long. Was the job offer sincere? Was there any notice or severance associated with the RIF? Was this the only position that was eliminated?
A one day turn-around to answer your company about the new job seems to have put this EE in a box. If the company was serious about wanting this EE to take the new job, I would think you would want to work with him to make it as attractive as possible. Otherwise why make the offer?
Your comment about him no longer being employed are not accurate. He accepted the new job, therefore is still employed. Did your company intend for the vacation time to be lost and incorporated that thought process into the timing of the offer? You think the illness is a sham, so why not ask for a doctors note?
Your instincts may be correct about this EE, but just put yourself in his shoes for a minute. Think about the shock and dismay this EE might be feeling and when looking for some sort of safety net, like some vacation pay to tide him/her over or to pay Christmas bills, or to fund a new job search, pay the rent, etc - your company did not appear to have anything for him. I gotta tell ya, I feel for the guy.
I know RIF's are a fact of life and that adjustments must be made to keep a company healthy, etc., etc., but with the facts given, this one seems a bit cold. If it ever happens to me, I hope I get more notice and have some sort of safety net than has been described in this case.
Please keep us posted. We all benefit and learn from every situation.
Yes it does look like we are trying to withhold his vacation pay. We are. However, based on your answers here, I will recommend we treat his doctor's excuse (it is in writing) as a reason why he cannot begin his new position until the 5th. and see what happens. If he begins, then great! We will then advise him that his vacation has been used to pay the company back for the bonus he was paid by mistake, which he said he would return uncashed but did not. It will not cover the entire amount.
There was one other supervisor who's district was eliminated and he has also elected to take another postion. I believe he will be fine, newly posted vacation intact.
>great! We will then advise him that his
>vacation has been used to pay the company back
>for the bonus he was paid by mistake, which he
>said he would return uncashed but did not. It
>will not cover the entire amount.
>
Aren't you concerned that an employee has cashed a bonus he was not entitled to? Sounds like a bigger issue to me.
If the employee received a payment in error, that money must be repaid. I would NOT recommend using someone's vacation pay to offset the erroneous payment without their written authorization. If this employee agreed to return the payment and has not done so, it is basically theft and should be treated as such.
However, now that he is saying he will begin in a new position, and because of the advice given here his vacation will be posted so he will receive his vacation, the company would like to reclaim what it is owed.
Am I to understand that he must consent to this? If so, then we will get his consent.
In hindsight it would have been better not to offer him a position, but as I said, doing so is standard procedure. We are learning a great deal from this, and hopefully will not let it happen again.
We recently did the same thing - eliminated a management position & offered him a demotion. We gave him 2 weeks to make the decision, which put him at the middle of December. He chose not to accept the demotion & resigned instead, but he asked if his resignation could be effective Dec. 31. We said "yes." He basically got 2 extra weeks of work (on top of 16 wks of severance), but goodwill goes a long way. Other employees know that we treated him with respect & did what we could to make the adjustment easier for him.
2 weeks may be longer than you care to allow, but you might consider a future policy of allowing at least 1 week for a decision when you're offering a new position.
You're new - sorry for the irritation in my response - hope you'll continue to participate. x:-)
Is your company a small company? Some of what you've described reminds me of my company 5 years ago... small company, rapidly growing, owners who hired clearly unqualified "friends" because it fulfilled their ego trips to "give someone a job." No clear job descriptions or duties, no policies. Truly, the place "flew by the seat of its pants" & stands as a testimony that God must provide some special protection to entrepenuers. They would have described themselves as "pro-ee" as well, because they did try to make good decisions about employees - problem was, they decided things case by case, & it was, inevitably, a very unfair system. So they found themselves in these dilemmas, just like you've described, because of the inconsistency of their HR practices. And they were absolutely "shocked" when they had to respond to DOL/EEOC complaints ("who's the DOL/EEOC anyway," they wondered?). Whether they were "pro-ee" would have depended on who you ask.
If this is the phase your company is in, then there are specific strategies you can implement so that you don't have to referee these types of dilemmas anymore. I mean, really now, how do you accidently get a bonus check? What's wrong with you procedure that allowed that to happen? And what are you going to do to keep that from ever happening again? And here's one of my HR mantras when I'm in a debate with my CEO over an HR practice (because he can do some pretty squirrely things) ..."I'm trying to picture myself on the witness stand in front of a hostile jury explaining why we did this." He backs down every time!
And btw, I hope you continue to participate...I was attacked the first time I posted...I think they practice "hazing"...reminds me of my old sorority days!
Kathi
As to rickam - I did read all of your posts & still feel exactly the same. Glad you're participating in the process though - welcome to the forum. x:-)
I have been viewing this as a termination, and not seeing that my company has chosen to make it a RIF.
The position has been eliminated, however the supervisor should have been terminated quite a while ago for performance and causing discord among his co-workers. It has been a sore point with me, and it is this that has been uppermost on my mind when I wrote my original post. Now I am simply glad he is gone and we should pay the price for harmony.
I am going to advise that as such, the supervisor be granted his vacation and I am also going to recommend severance because of the short notice. The bonus was mistakenly paid. This I do know. Since we did not demand repayment when it happened, then it too should be written off and forgotten.
Once again thank you all for helping me take an objective look at this.