Reductions in Force/Layoffs/Reduced Hours: What Employers Need to Know Now

There’s a lot of fear in the air right now. Brett has never been so busy within his practice and he’s been doing this for 35 years. During times of perceived economic downturn, litigation and lawsuits end up spiking up. In this podcast episode, Brett explains how to reduce your risk as much as possible when you’re considering letting go of some of the workforce. How do you approach this? How do you avoid getting sued for unfair termination? Brett covers all of this and more.

Highlights:

• Brett and his office have been busy! There’s some economic disruption happening.

• What should employers be thinking about when it comes to reduction in workforce?

• What are some alternatives to reduction in force?

• There are a lot of nuances to reducing your workforce “without” notice.

• If you’re in California, you need to be careful with reducing someone’s hours. You need advance notice.

• Can employers do furloughs?

• After exhausting all the alternatives, what’s the next step to reducing the workforce?

• Are you going to let someone go due to their performance? Brett explains the best legal approach to doing this.

• From a legal perspective, really think through your layoffs. You need to have proof.

• Are you laying off anybody who recently filed a worker’s comp?

• People get scared and they start to think if they’re next, and then a ripple effect ensues.

• Be careful. People get angry or upset and might sabotage relationships with your clients and/or publish unflattering news about you on social media.

• When does it make sense to conduct a company-wide layoff?

• After a layoff, people do consult their lawyers and you might get dinged for something unrelated to the layoff itself.

• If you have a remote worker, are they still eligible for FMLA?

• If you go through a second or third round of layovers within a 90-day period, you need to be careful if it falls under the WARN act.

• Do your employees have a written employment agreement?

• Whatever you do, you need to have a qualified attorney helping you with this process.

• What do you want confidential? Your client list should be on there.

• In your severance agreement, there is often language that makes other agreements void once an employee signs this one. You have to make sure you’re referencing other agreements that employees have signed in the past like NDAs.

• You need to have a clear document stating the decisional markers as to why employees were fired.

• You have to also prove that you didn’t fire your older employees intentionally or else you could be sued for ageism.

• What should employers know about the “Silence No More” act?

• The more information you can give to your employees, the better. People tend to “fill in the blanks” when they don’t have the needed information and their imagination can take over.

• Have questions? Please feel to reach out to Brett and his team.

Resources:

Suttonhague.com

Calnevalaw.com