The time I got laid off, we got 60 days notice in lieu of severance. And we were expected to work through the layoff period as well, up to the transition date (as we had lost the contract to our competitor). Luckily I was picked up by the new company.
I would say a decent serverance package is the one you receive.
The most generous layoff package I ever received was two weeks severance plus one week for each year of service, plus “outplacement services.”
The worst one I received was “Here’s two weeks. Get out.”
The fairest one I ever received was being told in May that they might not be able to keep me after October, then being told at the beginning of September they definitely couldn’t keep me, and that I could take whatever time I needed to look for a new job.
In a normal economy the standard is to allow one month job search for $30,000/year and under. Then add one month search for each additional $10,000 you made.
So if you make $50,000.00 a year you should expect to look for a job for 3 month. A generous severence package would allow you at least 3 months of pay (including paying of insurance).
One week severance for each year employed is pretty much standard.
The thing I hate was around 2000 employers stopped the insurance. Before 2000 when I quit a job the insurance was always paid up till the last day of the month. Now it often stops the end of the week you leave. Since you usually leave on Friday that’s only one more day.
In most states PTO must be paid. Sick time and holidays are paid only if earned. Most sick time isn’t paid 'cause it’s conditional, in other words sick time is to be used only when sick so if you’re not sick you’re not entitled to it.
However if you have a lot it might be well to sue. In Illinois for instance, the courts have ruled if sick or other conditional time, like holidays is accured for on the books then it must be paid out. Bonuses if accrued for also must be paid out if they are already accured for on the books. (That’s Illinois law).
Also after you get your final paycheck have a friend call and pretend to do a reference check. One thing I found really annoying was after I got let go, the company would say “Never heard of him,” which really looks good for future jobs. Of course they were just too lazy to be botherd looking it up and if pressed they would say “OH yeah, I know him, sorry I forgot we get really busy here.”
Hang on a sec. You mean she was hired back to the *same company *that laid her off and they continued her severance pay?
That is exactly the case. The official policy was that the severance pay was yours regardless of whether you found a job or not, and did not specify any limitations. Like I said, they have since changed the official policy.
It’s hard to say. I did try to look online through Washington’s employment/labour statutes to see if a minimum standard for severance pay was set by law, but could find nothing. Of course, being unfamiliar with Washington statute law, I may have been looking in the wrong place. At any rate, if you can establish a statutory minimum standard, you’re in a position to judge your severance as “just met the standard,” “better than the standard,” “much better than the standard,” and so on. If you can do legal research and can search case precedents, you can do the same thing for Washington’s common law precedents that set standards too.
IMHO, this question really should hinge on the jurisdiction and the job. By that, I mean that rather than asking posters in all jobs on an international message board, you should be asking the question of other similar professionals in your location if possible. Employment conditions in Seattle for technical writers are undoubtedly different than they are for, say, insurance adjusters in Dallas, or auto mechanics in London. With all due respect to my fellow posters, I think you should keep that in mind when you consider answers to your question.
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. I am not a lawyer. For competent legal advice on this or similar matters, consult a professional licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.
The standard here (Ottawa) in the private sector is 4 weeks for each year of service, plus obviously any accrued vacation hours. I believe the labour code has a requirement of one week for each year of service, but a precedent has been set for four weeks and has been successfully challenged in court by people whom I know.
Australian checking in - all entitlements (usually this just means accrued leave), two months’ notice (or pay in lieu) and four weeks a year’s service is the baseline. Some companies cap it at no more than fifty-two weeks’ pay, but most don’t. That amount’s also typically taxed concessionally as an “Eligible Termination Payment”, so it’s more than it sounds.
My company doesn’t cap the amount, but it also rounds up on the six-months-and-a-day mark rather than on the anniversary date.
Ex-co-workers who had jobs with American companies, though, tell me that two weeks a year is ‘standard’ for a professional job - potentially less if they keep an entitlement to benefits.
I remember when Joan Severance was quite the package.
sorry…couldn’t resist
My husband was laid off following a merger. He had worked for the acquired company, and they had certain details in place about what had to happen if their managers were laid off. So he got 9 months of severance, during which they continued all benefits. Best. Severance. Ever. (Although not exactly a golden parachute.)
And then…After 3 months, they hired him back–as a temp–and the severance pay continued, along with the temp pay (and he was not the only one of the laid-off hired back). Technically his temp work was through another company.
He had worked for the company for 18 months before the merger, and was laid off about a year after the merger. He continued working as a temp for another year and a half. So, really, it looks like the company shouldn’t have laid him and the others off to begin with.
I worked for a company for three years, and when my whole dept. was laid off we got 6 months severance plus job-hunting assistance–that is, they paid for one of those agencies that spiffs up your resume and gives you personality assessment tests. Found out that I had already done a great job writing my own resume and I’m an INTJ. (I was just one week back after 4 months of maternity leave when this came down, so I basically treated it as 6 more months of maternity leave, but then I don’t have much of a work ethic.)
…you have nothing to apologize for.
I work under rolling five year individual employment contracts. If I get the flick, I get paid all my accrued benefits plus one year’s salary.
My severance (which I signed last week) is 2 weeks for each year service, rounded up, and 6 months paid COBRA insurance, plus outplacement services.
I worked for a film studio and they cut my department in half.
My severance back then:
Minimum six months pay, plus one month for every full year you worked there.
Also, you got paid any vacation pay and sick days you had not used.
Also got six months health insurance paid in advance.
I was doing my happy dance all the way to Human Resources to get fired and you couldn’t wipe the smile from my face.
It was a sweet deal, but they wanted to make sure the rest of the employees felt comfortable to remain at their job, knowing they too would get the deal no matter what happened. It worked. Hardly anyone quit their jobs during those months of layoffs.
To be honest, I have never heard of a company give a deal like that, but sure was glad I was a part of that severance package!
Really? I was at my former employer 13 years and throughout that time no one I knew got more than 1 week pay for every year of employment, and for non-management that was capped at 10 years. From what I hear through the grapevine, they have now dropped that to 5 now.
When I was laid off I was told by other people that standard severance was anywhere between two weeks of pay and a year of pay. I have come to the conclusion that different companies have different standards