employment at will and compensation changes

welcome

I have a senior person with no employment contract (employee at will) whose compensation structure is being changed based on the needs of the business and our shareholders. Without going into all the details, if he refuses to accept the new (and still very generous) comp arrangement, does he have legal recourse? We would offer him a very nice severance arrangement if he chose to leave.

ACU Frank

You may be well within your rights to change his comp structure, and he may still be well within his rights to sue. As they say, the devil is in the details.

Still Need Coffee

Frank is right - all it takes is for the employee to show that the company had another cause for changing his pay, and all the sudden you have a retaliation suit on your hands.

With that said, there is [I]always [/I]a chance that an employee will take legal action against you, no matter how pure your motives are. But it doesn't mean that employee will [I]win[/I]. As long as your facts are well documented and you've done everything on the up-and-up, hopefully you'll be fine.

Sharon McKnight SPHR

I agree with the others and would only add that if he's in a protected class your risk factor increases.

Sharon