ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 25, 1996 TAG: 9608230109
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: WORKPLACE
SOURCE: L.M. SIXEL HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Not many people seem to get fired anymore. It's chic these days to offer errant employees the chance to resign, so they never have to breathe the career-killing words ``fired'' or ``terminated'' in job interviews. For years, companies have explained executives' departures by announcing they were leaving ``to pursue other interests.''
Unless that announcement ``whines and moans about him being an invaluable resource and how much the company hates to see him go,'' it's a pretty sure bet the company decided it was time for the executive to leave, said William Sala, senior vice president and managing director of Drake Beam Morin, an outplacement company in Houston. Experts say the face-saving courtesy now extends to lower-level employees. Firing someone is very traumatic, said Tony Rosenstein, an employment and trial lawyer. Letting someone resign is a way to soften the blow.
And if the employer wisely has a neutral reference policy - providing only the dates of the worker's employment, his job title and maybe his job duties - no one will ever know that the employee had the choice of getting fired or quitting, Rosenstein said.
Over the years, Sala said, he has offered his own employees the chance to resign unless they did something criminal or verging on gross misconduct. It's more humane giving people a chance to continue their careers, he said.
Sometimes, however, employers encourage a worker to resign just to avoid giving him severance pay, said Richard Carlson, a professor at South Texas College of Law who specializes in employment law. A company may have a severance plan that gives out checks only to employees who are fired. Employers may also ask a worker to resign if they figure they can avoid a claim for unemployment or a discrimination lawsuit, Carlson said.
That tactic doesn't often work, however. Rosenstein said giving someone the choice of quitting or getting fired is still a termination under the law. An employee who is given that choice and chooses resignation can still receive unemployment compensation or file a lawsuit against the boss. In some states, including Virginia, employment is "at will," meaning both employer and employee can terminate without cause and generally not be at fault legally.
Carlson agrees that the law treats a forced resignation as a termination. An argument over whether an employee quit or was fired, however, may create uncertainty among jurors, who could side with the boss and determine that the employee voluntarily resigned, he said. Maida Asofsky, a Houston employment lawyer who represents workers, says the quit-or-be-fired quandary often pops up during layoffs, when older workers are called in and told they can either take severance packages and sign releases for damages or get fired. The workers are generally offered nice severance checks, sweetened pension packages and maybe a continuation of health insurance coverage, said Asofsky, an employment lawyer who represents workers. The companies then say the workers resigned.
``It very often works, because it's often a good deal,'' Asofsky said. The unit director of nursing at a Houston-area hospital discovered she had ``resigned'' when she was called into an executive's office and told that her agenda no longer fit the hospital's. The ex-employee, who asked not to be identified, said she liked her job and had had no plans to leave. She received three months of severance pay.
The former nursing director figured she was axed because she was on the top end of the pay scale and the hospital was trying to cut costs. By announcing that she had resigned, the company probably avoided some embarrassment, because she was a popular employee, she said.
Rosenstein laughed when he heard the story. It's the employee, not the boss, who should make the decision to resign.
``An employer doesn't resign,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB