Termination of employment

Termination of employment refers to the end of an employee's duration with an employer. Depending on the case, the decision may be made by the employee, the employer, or mutually agreed upon by both.

Voluntary termination

Voluntary termination refers to a decision made by the employee to leave the job. Such a decision is commonly known as resignation, quitting, leaving, or giving notice. Some common reasons for voluntary termination include:

• Personal dissatisfaction with job, employer, hours, or working conditions, or in more severe cases, burnout.
• Factors in employee's personal life not related to the job that make holding or performing the job impossible or more difficult. These may include family obligations, education, health, or moving to a new location.
• Hire at a new job. Reasons for wanting a different job may be better working conditions, better hours, a shorter distance to work, better pay, graduation, career progression or preparation for entry into a new career, or a career change.
• Feared or anticipated involuntary termination. The employee may wish to take matters into his/her own hands in order to leave more honorably. This is also known as mutual consent in some parts.
• Retirement. This may be as a result of the employee's age (which may vary, depending on job type and benefits available following retirement) or else an injury, disability, or other medical condition forcing early retirement.

Depending on the employee's reason, comfort with the employer, and dedication to the job, voluntary termination may be sudden and abrupt without warning to the employer, or with a certain amount of notice given. Generally, employers prefer that a departing employee provide at least some notice to the employer, often at least two weeks. Those in compliance with this requirement are more likely to be rehired by the same employer in the future, to receive their full benefits from the employer, and to get a better reference for future employers.

Involuntary termination

Involuntary termination refers to the employee's departure at the hands of the employer. There are two basic types of involuntary termination, known often as being "fired" and "laid off." To be fired, as opposed to being laid off, is generally thought of to be the employee's fault, and therefore is considered in most cases to be dishonorable and a sign of failure. Often, it may hinder the now job-seeker's chances of finding new employment, particularly if he/she has been fired from earlier jobs. Job seekers will often not mention jobs that they were fired from on their resumes; accordingly, unexplained gaps in employment are often regarded as a red flag.

Dismissal

Dismissal refers to the employer's choice to let go of the employee generally for a reason that is the fault of the employee. The most common colloquial term for dismissal is "getting fired." Other common synonyms include sacked, being bounced out, released, discharged, canned and axed.[1] A common euphemism for dismissal is being "let go."

Reasons

There are many reasons why an employer may fire an employee. Some of the more common reasons include:

• Work performance that fails to meet a given standard, especially over a period of time. This can be either incompetence, laziness, neglect or any other inability to perform duties within the job description.
• Chronic absence, tardiness, or other attendance problems
• Unprofessional mannerism or inappropriate conduct
• Constant or gross insubordination, or other inability to properly relate (i.e., get along) with co-workers and/or customers
• Damage caused to the employer through negligence
• Repeated minor violations of work rules by the employee, despite counseling from a supervisor or employer
• Any other failing as deemed appropriate by a workplace manager or supervisor.

In the United States, most states have adopted the at-will employment contract that allows the employer to dismiss employees without having to provide any of the reasons listed above, although through the variety of court cases coming out of "at will" dismissals, can make such at will contracts ambiguous. Usually an at will termination is handled as a "layoff". Sometimes, an employee will be dismissed if an employer can find better employees than the incumbent. This is common with probationary employees who were recently hired, but who cannot adjust to the environment of the workplace.

In the above examples, the termination is frequently part of a "progressive step" process, meaning the employee will have been warned and given an opportunity to improve before more severe measures are taken. However, immediate termination may occur for certain more serious offenses, often known as gross misconduct or zero tolerance offenses. These may result in immediate dismissal without any further warning:

• Discovery of false information on the job application (such as resume fraud)
• Sleeping while on duty, or otherwise blatantly failing to perform duties
• Fighting
• Harassment of other employees, such as sexual or racial harassement
• Use of employer's equipment (e.g., vehicles and computers) to engage in non-work-related activity or other violation of employer policies, illegal activity, or to view pornography
• Testing positive for illegal drug usage, or failure to submit to a mandatory drug test
• Engaging in illegal activities on the job (such as embezzlement or illegal subordinate harassment)

In some cases, an employee's off-the-job behavior could result in his losing his/her job. A common example is drunk driving, especially if the employee's principal responsibilities require driving. Often, an employee getting charged with a crime will affect the employer's ability to trust the employee.

Some employees terminated for gross misconduct may face additional consequences besides their dismissal. This may occur when the reason for the termination is a violation of criminal law, or if serious damages are caused as a result of the employee's actions. Such ex-employees may face criminal prosecution, a civil lawsuit, or a reporting to a database of those who have engaged in serious misconduct in such a position, so that the chances of ever obtaining a similar position with another employer are less likely. Some examples are a caregiver who engages in abuse, or a bank teller who has stolen money from the cash drawer.

For the most serious violations of all, especially when the employer's security may be at risk from the employee in question, a guard or officer may escort a "fired" employee from the workplace to the parking lot upon his/her dismissal. Such actions are often taken by government offices or large corporations that contain sensitive materials, and where the risk exists that the terminated employee may steal some of these materials in order to retaliate against the employer or else use it to the advantage of a competing enterprise.

Nevertheless, some employers are reluctant to get rid of "problem employees" who one would expect would be deserving of termination. There are many reasons for this.

• Fear of retaliation: The employer must be considered about various types of action the ex-employee make take against the company, including:
  • Wrongful termination suit: The employer may be concerned that the terminated employee may take legal action in response to the firing. While laws vary in each country and jurisdiction, many employers keep extensive documentation of disciplinary action, evaluations, attendance records, and correspondence from supervisors, co-workers and customers in order to defend themselves in the event of such a suit. Additionally, most U.S. states have adopted the at-will employment contract that allows the employer to dismiss employees without having to provide any of the reason, though this has sometimes been challenged in court.
  • Negative report to public: The dismissed employee may tell negative things about the company to others, thereby hurting their business.
  • Disclosure of trade secrets: An ex-employee may take materials or knowledge from the former employee and use it with another employer or in an independent business.
  • Report to law enforcement: In the event that the employer's practices are not perfectly honest or within the confines of the law, there is the chance that a fired employee may report this.
  • Violence: In some most extreme cases, fired employees have been known to erupt in violence against their former employers, sometimes known in slang as going postal.
• Unemployment Insurance costs: In the United States, such benefits are financed by employers. A firm's unemployment costs increase with each worker laid off or fired.
• Difficulty in finding replacement: Some positions may be hard to fill. This may be the case with a rare skilled position, or with certain low-wage jobs that are generally unattractive.

Employers have several methods of countering some of these potential threats. Mostly, the common method, often known as Forced resignation, allows the employee to resign as if by choice, thereby freeing the employer of the burden of a firing. Some methods used by employers include:

• Severance package: The employee is offered some extended pay or benefits in exchange for departure. In turn, the ex-employee agrees not to sue, file for unemployment, or take any other action that would hurt the employer.
• Demotion: The employee is moved to a lower position, his/her hours or pay are cut, or the working environment is made increasingly hostile in hopes of getting the employee to depart voluntarily.

In some cases, a firing may not be so dishonorable after all. Some examples include conflict of interest, where the employee has done nothing wrong, but the presence of the employee on the employer's payroll may be harmful to the employer. This may be the case when a family member also becomes employed by the firm. In other cases, those who report wrongdoing in the workplace, known as whistleblowers, put their job at risk.

Main article: Whistleblower

Discriminatory and retaliatory termination

In some cases, the firing of an employee is a discriminatory act. Although an employer may often claim the dismissal was for "just cause," these discriminatory acts are often because of the employee's physical or mental disability, or perhaps his/her age, race, gender, HIV status or sexual orientation. Other unjust firings may result from a workplace manager or supervisor wanting to retaliate against an employee. Often, this is because the worker reported wrongdoing (often, but not always sexual harassment or other misconduct) on the part of the supervisor. Such terminations are usually illegal. Many successful lawsuits have resulted from discriminatory or retaliatory termination.

Discriminatory or retaliatory termination by a supervisor can take the form of administrative process. In this form the rules of the instituton are used as the basis for termination. For example, if a place of employment has a rule that prohibits personal phone calls, receiving or making personal calls can be the grounds for termination even though it may be a common practice within the organization.

Layoff

A less severe form of involuntary termination is often referred to as a layoff. A layoff is usually not strictly related to personal performance but due to economic cycles or the company's need to restructure itself, or a change in function of the employer (for example, a certain type of product or service is no longer offered by the company and therefore jobs related to that product or service are no longer needed). One type of layoff is the aggressive layoff. Under such a situation the employee is laid off for a just cause but is never replaced and the job is eliminated.

In a postmodern risk economy, such as the United States, a large proportion of workers may be laid off at some time in their life, and often not for reasons related to performance or ethics.

However, employment termination can also result from a probational period, in which the employee and the employer reaches an agreement that he or she is allowed to lay off the employee if the probational period is not satisfied.

Often, layoffs occur as a result of "downsizing", "reduction in force", or "redundancy". These are not technically classified as firings. A laid-off employee's job is terminated and not re-filled, because the company wishes to reduce its size or operations, or otherwise lacks the economic stability to retain the position. In some cases, a laid-off employee may be offered re-hire by his/her respective company, though by this time, s/he has often found a new job.

Some companies resort to attrition as a means to reduce their work force [2]. Under such a plan, no employees are forced to leave their jobs. However, those who do depart voluntarily are not replaced. Additionally, employees are given the option to resign in exchange for a fixed amount of money, frequently a few years of their salary. Such plans have been carried out by the United States Federal Government under President Bill Clinton during the 1990s [3], and by the Ford Motor Company in 2005 [4].

Termination by mutual agreement

Some terminations occur as a result of mutual agreement between the employer and employee. When this happens, it is sometimes debatable if the termination was truly mutual. In many of these cases, it was originally the employer's wish for the employee to depart, but the employer offered the mutual termination agreement in order to soften the firing (as in a forced resignation). But there are also times when a termination date is agreed upon before the employment starts (as in an employment contract).

Some types of termination by mutual agreement include:

• The end of an employment contract for a specified period of time (such as an internship)
• Mandatory retirement. Some occupations, such as commercial airline pilots, face mandatory retirement at a certain age [5].
• Forced resignation

Forced resignations

A Forced resignation is when an employee is required to depart from his/her position due to some issue caused by his/her continued employment. A forced resignation may be due to the employer's wishes to dismiss the employee, but the employer may be offering a softened firing. Or else, in a high profile position, the employee may want to leave before the press learns more negative information about one's controversial nature.

To avoid this, and to allow the dismissed employee to "save face" in a more "graceful" exit, the employer will often ask the employee to resign "voluntarily" from his or her position. If the employee chooses not to resign, the processes necessary to fire him or her may be pursued, and the employee will usually be fired. The resignation thus makes it unclear whether the resignation was forced or voluntary, and this opaqueness may benefit both parties: for instance, the "fired" employee may not as easily be able to seek new employment in his/her given field.

Changes of conditions

Firms that wish for an employee to exit of his or her own accord, but do not wish to pursue firing or forced resignation, may degrade the employee's working conditions, hoping that he or she will leave "voluntarily". The employee may be moved to a different geographical location, assigned to an undesirable shift, given too few hours if part time, demoted (or relegated to a menial task), or assigned to work in uncomfortable conditions. Other forms of manipulation may be used, such as being unfairly hostile to the employee, and punishing him or her for things that are deliberately overlooked with other employees.

Such tactics may amount to constructive dismissal, which is illegal in some jurisdictions.

Rehire following termination

Depending on the circumstances, one whose employment has been terminated may or may not be able be rehired by the same employer.

If the decision to terminate was the employee's, the willingness of the employer to rehire is often contingent upon the relationship the employee had with the employer, the amount of notice given by the employee prior to departure, and the needs of the employer. In some cases, when an employee departed on good terms, s/he may be given special priority by the employer when seeking rehire.

Surprisingly, an employee who was fired by an employer may in some cases be eligible for rehire by that same employer.

An employee may be terminated without prejudice, meaning the fired employee may be rehired readily for the same or a similar job in the future. This is usually true in the case of layoff.

Conversely, a person can be terminated with prejudice, meaning an employer will not rehire the former employee to a similar job in the future. This can be for many reasons: incompetence, misconduct (such as dishonesty or "zero tolerance" violations), insubordination or "attitude" (personality clashes with peers or bosses).

Termination forms ("pink slips") routinely include a set of check boxes where a supervisor can indicate "with prejudice" or "without prejudice."

During the Vietnam War, the CIA used this terminology with regard to its locally hired operatives. In the case of severe misconduct, it is alleged that the CIA would assassinate them or "terminate with extreme prejudice". This phrase entered popular culture - often shorn of its original context - through its use in the movie Apocalypse Now.

High-profile firings

High-profile firing refer to the termination of an employee who is in the public spotlight. In such cases, though terminology may be similar, the rules may differ from the typical firing.

For example, in professional sports, a coach's dismissal is generally referred to as a firing. However, though the employment will cease, the team may be required to pay the coach the remainder of his contract. A player on a team who faces the same action is generally not considered to be "fired," but rather "released" or "waived."

There are times when the President of the United States will ask his entire Cabinet to submit their resignations. He can accept some of them and file the rest away. This is often done by a new President who has inherited his predecessor's Cabinet, as a way to reorganize with reduced hard feelings.

High-profile individuals, when forced to resign from a job, will often claim that they resigned over "creative differences" or "to spend more time with their family". However, even these reasons can create rumors, especially when they are obviously false.

See also

• Turnover (employment)
• Employee Exit Management