This is how companies lay people off without having to report layoffs
And if they resign, no severance.
Pretty sure Tesla is getting sued right now because they tried to call layoffs resignations with this same scheme
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I think you’re misunderstanding the cause and effect here.
“They did something wrong which is why they’re getting sued” is not the same thing as “they are getting sued, therefore they must have done something wrong.”
I’m just stating a fact. You can sue someone for anything, it doesn’t mean you’ll win. Just because someone sues you it doesn’t mean you actually did anything wrong.
I’m just saying that saying that Tesla is getting sued for doing the same thing doesn’t actually mean anything. It can be said that Tesla did the same thing, but the fact that they’re getting sued for it doesn’t really mean anything until they win or lose (and maybe a little if they settle) the lawsuit.
No shit Sherlock.
Can an employee just refuse to go back and continue to work? I’d much rather be fired by them than give them a pass by resigning.
Yes, but they don’t have to pay you unemployment, because they can say you’re not following employment requirements.
they can’t change your job in order to get you to quit, though. You don’t have to agree to new requirements, and can get unemployment because they fire you for not doing so.
In this case, this might still qualify as constructive dismissal. Even if it for sure would, not everyone will apply for unemployment, and they can still challenge it, causing delays and getting more people to not pursue it, ultimately resulting in a layoff that’s cheaper than it’s ought to be.
Yeah - I’m not a lawyer, but my casual understanding is you can get out of that gotcha if you apply the rule equally to everyone at the company. No legal action against these RTO mandates has been successful so far.
That being said, I didn’t fully read the article. Roblox is offering severance to those who don’t want to RTO - that’s less shitty than a lot of the other tech companies.
That seems like it would only apply to people hired after March 2020. Anyone before then would have been in office anyway.
Maybe. If both parties agreed to the change to become remote full time, then they’d both have to agree to change back. Though having a previous non-remote work agreement changed by an international state of emergency does give some weight to the employer side.
But I’m not a lawyer.
If people were hired (say, in 2020) under the condition that they’re allowed to work from home, this might be considered constructive dismissal - that is, forcing an employee to quit in a way that is equivalent to firing them. The employees are then entitled to the normal rules for unemployment, and potentially severance pay, unused vacation cashout, and so on.
I think Musk is facing several lawsuits along those lines, but might be moving to settle because the cost of arbitration would potentially bankrupt the company.
Constructive dismissal only applies when it is used to terminate someone who is otherwise protected, for example a whistleblower. Companies can change work location requirements more or less at will.
Constructive dismissal was advised as a suit by an employment lawyer representing Twitter employees in California in a published article when Musk ordered employees whose employment offers specified work from home needed to work in the office. It’s a hostile change to the work environment that is alleged to encourage employees to quit, as indicated by the messages saying that people who do not return to office will be considered to have quit.
I mean, you’re not necessarily wrong, and I’m sure Elon hopes you’re right. But we will have to see how it plays out. The fun part is that CA law specifies that some types of employee cases have to be tried individually rather than collectively.
Employees should sue since this is functionally a layoff.
That’s what unemployment is for. If they fight the claim, then yeah, lawyer.
They are actually not able to follow up. They are saying resign… not get canned. They actually cannot afford severance. Best way to fight back is not comply, not resign.
Constructive or insightful comments, such as this, are the kind of content Lemmy should strive for.
When will these asshole narcissist CEOs learn? We dont want to go into the office to stroke your fuckin ego, douchebag.
I blame all the managers who struggle to create remotely engaging virtual meetings, and who count the majority of their team’s productivity based on how many hours they can see them sitting at their desk🙄
I do so much less work at the office than I do at home.
Honestly, make me come back, I need a break.
another out of touch shitbag CEO ~ sky blue yet
Guess what? He also sued someone for exposing him for protecting paedophiles!
He’s one of the highest paid CEOs in the entire world, fun fact… the 7th highest paid, at USD$232,786,391 in 2021(which is 1600x the average roblox employee’s pay)
Unspoken here is the third option: navigate a series of untextured raised rectangular platforms littered with smaller rectangles that will fire you automatically if you touch them, designed by an 8 year old that got bored halfway through the engineering phase and wandered off to play Breakin Story 2.
The good news is that, for only 399 robux a month, you can get VIP membership, which includes a coil that allows you to immediately jump over the entire platform and land into a dated pile of two dimensional meme sprites they meant to clean up.
Cool so what prevents me from not going in 3 times a week and also not resigning?
Fired for failure to meet performance requirements. That’s fired for cause. No unemployment.
Appeal that it was change in workplace conditions without adequate compensation. Unemployment with backpay
Fail argument as that is in no way something that is prohibited in the US.
Constructive dismissal. Yes it is, there are some grounds as other comments have explained.
Fire them, I dare you.
They will, with only a month of severance. Their goal is to cut cost, these are layoffs
I was given an ultimatum like this once, to do X or resign, and I chose not to do X and refused to resign, and I worked there for an additional nine months until I found something better. I did have to endure several meetings where they kept saying I “needed” to resign or comply, but they never fired me. Said I would get a bad reference, but since that’s extremely risky on the company’s part, I still used them as a reference. HR dgaf. They just know they can’t say anything negative about a previous employee. The whole thing is absurd posturing.
Exactly. Fire me. I’ll work as an independent contractor and suck up your unemployment until I can’t get another dime, then I’ll get a job.
why is it risky on their part?
It’s a huge opening to get sued. So you could lose millions, but it’ll never make you a cent. So most are advised to just confirm very basic information like how long the employee worked there.
https://www.achrnews.com/articles/141319-what-can-i-say-about-former-employees
Companies seem to be afraid of getting sued by the previous employee over it. I’m not sure what the claim would be though… Maybe defamation?
Defamation/slander/libel kind of thing with damages estimated based on anticipated earning potential over the course of time you might have been employed by the job they inhibited you from getting. That means that HR or whoever is called for the reference needs to be 100% accurate and provably correct about every single thing they say about the former employee.
From a risk management viewpoint for the company there is basically no gain whatsoever for preventing an employee getting another job, it requires flawless execution, often from random people in HR, and the potential downside is the above, which could be million(s)-dollar damages.
Basically: a bad referral is very high risk, minimal/no upside, and tremendous downside. HR simply reports demonstrable facts (whether employed at the company, from when to when), none of which is subject to interpretation.
If you’ve REALLY pissed someone off in HR and they want to give you a bad reference, the most they might do is state yes they worked here from X to Y and ask the potential employer if they have other applicants, but even that is just pointless risk from the standpoint of the company.
They should have made you an executive
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Great way to ensure talent walks away
And make the companies unemployment premiums go up!
Why resign? Force them to terminate and pay unemployment.
Roblox rhymes with sux cocks.
Well, i thought it was funny.
Or blow cocks…
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Many companies are doing this. They’re OK with the attrition. Acceptable losses as far as they’re concerned. I suppose it’s their right. I hope those that quit over it find better jobs.
It’s a weird tactic though. As a manager in a large organization, I’d be worried about who would leave in that situation. The top performers always have options. A handful might stick around, but the ones that will definitely stick around are the ones with less options and/or the ones too lazy to update their resume.
Exactly.
My own experience in IT with companies which were even just starting to talk about layoffs is that the people who can much more easilly find new jobs - typically the better ones and the ones with hard to find or in more demand expertises - are the ones who leave first, often preemptivelly (though it does depend on their chances to get compensation for being dismissed and how much, so for example in certail legal jurisdictions were compensation depends on years employed there, you might seen the best of the newer employes just take off whilst the ones with many years there hold on for compensation because it’s worth it for them).
In fact if you’re going to do cuts you better have the list of positions which are going to be cut already planned because in that period of uncertaintly between knowing there will be layoffs and knowing who is going to be kicked out is when those people who can easilly find another job will leave, if only because that removes the uncertainy of if and when they’ll stop getting paid, reduces the risk of a gap between jobs and even lets you take your time when searching for a new job and thus get a better one (if you’re kicked out whilst still having bills to pay being selective about your new job is sometimes not possible).
Even were such effects only impact a small number of employees, it’s never the least useful ones that leave preemptivelly.
In this specific case with an ultimatum of the “do this thing that’s going to be worse fo you because I say so, or else” kind, that’s just going to give more reason for the ones who can leave more easilly to leave.
Yep, and once you get people looking at the greener grass elsewhere, you’ve started the slow roll of attrition of your top talent even they don’t leave right away
Indeed: when people in a company start thinking about change, maybe have a look around and find out they could be better of elsewhere than in their current position, at least some of those will leave and that will be the ones “who could be better of elsewhere” rather than the ones that “have the best job they could get with their qualifications” - in other words and from a pure business consideration point of view, it just increases the likelihood of losing the “beter value for money” employees.
That’s ok once they realize their mistakes they will hire them back for even more money than they used to make, after offering them their job back for less money than they used to make first.
Great way to lose talent, not sure you understand the impact that has when you lose higher ranking resources (that aren’t meaningless mid managers)
I see it in my own job. It’s a tough situation. I get where companies are coming from and where workers are coming from too. I’m back in the office and it sucks. I can maybe go somewhere else and lose seniority and everything but gain flexibility. It’s just another perk now you have to weigh all-in with pay and other compensation. Smart employers will recognize it’s something people value now and want to attract top talent with flexible work scenarios.
The smirk of a smug asshole.
Oof
Hey Roblox! Learn what the Dead Sea Effect means for you!
But how are their parents going to get them to work? /s
Punchable face
