Last night a friend at a San Francisco-based software company told me how his firm appears to have managed to get around a potential age discrimination lawsuit.
According to him, the firm wanted to let go of two employees, age 50 plus, who were becoming less productive. The firm feared that if they just let the two 50 plus employees go, they would open themselves up to an age discrimination lawsuit, so they fired all five employees who were at that management level, including younger ones.
The firm then announced that the releases were just a case of eliminating a level of redundant fat at the firm, but the speculation is the firm needs that management level and will bring on fresh faces with simply different titles to handle the management gap left because of the firings.
-RW
Its a wonder anybody gets hired in this regulatory environment. I have friends who look at employees as liabilities instead of assets. They will do most anything NOT to hire. Robotics, off shore, farm out, anything not to hire an employee directly. The editorialists at my local paper (about as far left as you can get) are scratching their heads trying to figure out whats going on and why the economy isnt booming. Of course that crowd could be sitting in the sewer wondering why it stinks!
ReplyDeleteObviously interest rates aren't low enough. Don't worry, Janet Yellen will save us!
DeleteI've done a similar thing before. The only difference is I hired back the people I wanted a week later after things died down instead of looking for entirely new people. You risk losing them, but in a tough economy it's easier to pull it off and still better than retraining an entirely a new set of people most of the time.
ReplyDeleteAn understandable but risky strategy. If the terminated elderly learn of the rehires (say from a former co-worker), you might as well be prepared to settle quickly since you will lose in adjudication, with the llikelihood of higher penalties than if you'd only terminated the elderly in the first round.
ReplyDeleteAs a small business owner, I will never hire an American again as a full time worker. Firstly they have an enormous sense of entitlement and way overvalue their worth in the marketplace. But more importantly, government regulations just make it too expensive and too risky. I started outsourcing to eastern Europe a few years ago and that is the way of the future.
ReplyDeleteAnd politicians wonder why the job market sucks. Duh.
DeleteI'd think YOU should know their value to your business (assuming they do their job) and could estimate on the high side any future government mandates. Based on that info, you should be able to make them an offer that they can take or refuse. No?
Delete