Feels like a teachable moment to me. I bet he’d learn a lot hearing your thoughts about his request and how it influences your opinion of him, and help him think more critically about his choices in the future.
Since none else has mentioned it; if you do end up laying off the employee despite Legal’s advice, and you need a replacement worker to sit at home doing nothing productive and collect $200/week, I volunteer. I promise I’m well qualified and currently up to date for doing so.
This. So much this. Holy guacafuckingmole giant piles of this. No employer should have this much personal knowledge about their employees, nor should they be basing any business decisions on it.
I agree, once legal weighed in your hands are tied.
But I’d still like to hear your opinion on how your company is using the system to avoid paying benefits for part time workers is any different from an employee using to same system to their own benefit? What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.
As an employee, I think you are right to follow the legal advice given by your employer. But I do want to say that your post really rubbed me the wrong way.
This. Fine, you found people who prefer part time work. But in general when employers cut up jobs this way the purpose is to avoid paying benefits.
Congress, in its manifest wisdom, decided to throw around money to stimulate the economy. Just as it’s not generally immoral to arrange your finances to take advantage of the loopholes others got put into the tax code, I don’t think this employee is doing anything immoral.
Yeah, this really rubbed the the wrong way, too. For $200/week in exchange for legitimate (if easy) labor, I don’t think you get to sit in moral judgement over how your employees spend their money. And it’s not as if you know everything about them. Maybe he has a disabled nephew that he’s helping out, but he’s embarrassed about the condition and never told you. Or maybe he just sits in his parents’ basement and plays video games. But it’s really not your concern.
Why are you assuming that they hired two part-time workers to avoid giving benefits to a full-time worker? I mean , that’s possible, but it’s not the only way you get two 20 hr a week workers. When I used to work part-time it was not at all uncommon to have multiple people work 20 hours a week - but you can’t replace two people each working from 4-8 pm Mon to Fri with single person working noon to 8 pm Mon -Fri* And the OP even says
If the company was really looking to be cheap, it seems they could have hired one person for 10 hours and paid $100 wk rather than $400 wk.
- Because typically there was already someone working 8 am - 4 pm, you didn’t need 2 people between noon and 4 but you did need two people between 4-8
Nitpicking?
If an employee doesn’t want to continue working for a company and informs them of that fact, it seems like that person is resigning. Asking the employer to take the active role (and possible financial hit) of actually firing them seems a bit…uh…presumptuous.
If the employee is actually fired, I would expect the employer to AT LEAST claim that it was with cause. I’ve had to appear before my state’s ESC board a couple times and I can assure you that they would consider “he said he doesn’t want to be employed here any longer and asked me to fire him” as being a justified cause for termination.
I completely understand why you find this offensive as I also find it offensive but the fact is he really isn’t doing anything wrong. Milking things and taking advantage a bit, yes, but stealing? Absolutely not.
I’m having a hard time seeing how one form of subsidized income is seen as morally justified and good while another is seen as bad, stealing, and punishable. The guy getting paid $200 to do nothing from the company can be viewed as a form of UI, or “milking the system” as well… and that money isn’t free either. The company (and it’s employees/shareholders or whatever) are paying for it, and they have a far smaller “tax base” than the federal govt. So maybe it costs everyone in the company $1 each to pay someone not to work. Have the Federal govt pay them and it would only cost a fraction of a cent (if spreading the cost out is what you’re actually concerned about… which I doubt).
And again, if he gets laid off and qualifies for UI, it’s not a fraudulent claim. This company has decided to set up it’s own rule system that allows them to pay employees who are doing nothing… fine they can do that, and those employees who benefit are not stealing by collecting that $200/week. The Fed govt can and has done the same thing and decided on their rule system to pay UI. Those who qualify for it are likewise not stealing.
So it’s pretty plain that this guy’s job is not actually secure (maybe the position is but not his place in it), and both the company’s legal department and his supervisor are plotting to give him the worst deal they can. Is this actually necessary, or just vengeful? It looks to me like the company is intentionally sticking their noses into this guy’s personal career and financial decisions and trying to deny him a legitimate option (remember - it’s not you who decides whether a UI claim is legitimate, it’s the gummint) and screw him over down the road by giving the false impression that he’s got a secure position and then cutting him out at the worst time for him. Just letting the guy go seems the better option to me, rather than trying to “make him pay” because he has a different opinion on how to run his finances than yours. If you don’t like the guy just lay him off and be rid of him, don’t be petty about it and lead him on out of spite.
So, in your state standing around the water cooler saying “I’d quit this job if I could” is grounds for firing? SE US? It figures.
This kid is with it and numerate enough to be able to calculate which course is to his advantage. I’d tend to hire someone like that. If the company would be out the loan money from this, tell him, and he’d probably accept it.
Before I retired I told my boss that if there was a layoff (which I knew was coming) he should lay me off first. I’d get the package, one person needing the job would stay employed, and he’d have a bit less pain. He was smart enough to realize that this didn’t mean I didn’t want to work there anymore.
The layoff didn’t come until 9 months after I retired, alas.
In most states, merely having a job is grounds for firing.
Yeah, but the unemployment office wouldn’t deny your claim because grousing is the equivalent of resigning.
Once you ran it by legal, which was a wise thing to do, your decision making was over. You have to follow their advice.
Management is a difficult function to do well. This is one example. You have to decide when to involve legal/personnel/upper management and when to go with your own decisions. The bad managers don’t find a balance-either everything is done by passing the decision up the chain, or you ignore the chain of command and do your own thing. Neither is good management. Here is an example where it went up the chain-probably to the detriment of the employee but only time will tell.
I still don’t think the employee did anything wrong. He asked a question of management. He did the right thing.
As I already wrote, termination for cause does not necessarily prevent one from receiving unemployment benefits.
Hey, flatlined, is that what you did? Your last comment was “but once I choose to run it by legal…”
so not sure if you did or are going to.
And that’s a good antidote to “maybe I should have done that…”
I’ve punted things to HR before, and said “Hey, it’s not MY decision any more…”
By the way, I still resent the boss who promoted me to middle management… I didn’t like supervising good workers, and hated managing problem employees. Only had to “fire” one guy, but I really didn’t have to do it…
I got around that by having a nice talk with this guy, where I asked him what he liked/hated about his job, what he wanted to do with his life, what his dream job was like. We ended up having a great heart-to-heart, and he realized that this job had nothing to do with his goals. Which was why he had an attitude about it… well, that and the bosses were arschlucks (I agreed with him on that). Once he figured that out, he couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Not disputing that at all. But ZonexandScout seems to be saying that grousing is the equivalent of resigning, which would not be covered. In other words “maybe you can lay me off” is the equivalent to “I quit.”
So far you haven’t written one thing I disagree with (in this thread at least.)
shitheel, perhaps, but standard business practice I’m afraid. and, yes, isn’t it interesting? :dubious:
HA!
I agree with many posts here, purplehorseshoe, but really love your passion. 
Yes, we can all agree that part time jobs are completely immoral. :rolleyes:
You will note that I said it was a small, evil part of me that suggested string him along then let him go. Realistically, the company should probably treat him exactly the same as the other fellow, and keep him on payroll (or not) as long as they can afford to / wish to do so.
Paid 200 for doing nothing right now is a result of the employer deciding to do the nice thing for as long as they can. That’s not “milking the system” at all - he’s accepting a willingly-given stipend.
The government does not have unlimited funds (not that you’d know it by some of the spending bills etc…) and that extra money per week truly is intended to help people who need it. This guy (from the description) does not need it. Why enable him?
I’m in agreement with Legal. If the company did *not *have the intention to let him go or stop paying him yet, the best course of action is just do nothing, disregard his request for a layoff-of-convenience, and keep the course until time to recall; or until management decides generosity has gone on long enough and then he can be laid off fair and square and apply for such benefit as the law says he will be entitled. But it is not the employer’s bailiwick to act in moral judgement of the employee’s intentions WRT a valid legal entitlement.
As mentioned before, in some cases employers who retain staff on the payroll during an interruption (in effect creating a *paid *furlough) will be eligible for various provisions to lessen the impact, depending on the configuration of the business. These include condonable low interest loans to keep things going (“Paycheck Protection Program”, S. 1102 of CARES Act) and/or in the case of F/T employees an Employee Retention Tax Credit (S. 2301). It’s by no means a complete recovery of the sustained payrolls but it is intended to reward those who keep people off the unemployment rolls. Plus there is a 2020 payroll taxes deferral, half until December 2021 and half until December 2022.