Ask HN: Can I ask for more severance pay?
Yesterday, without warning, my whole team was laid off. We didn't even get to finish the day or tidy up loose ends, document anything, etc.
After 9 years at a financial company, currently as a Quant, I am being offered only 3 weeks severance pay. When I started we were passing spreadsheets back and forth!
I want to ask for more. How does one go about this?
I received an overnight delivery with standard paperwork and I must sign to get the severance pay.
The timing could not be worse. I am a remote employee and I need to remain a remote employee. I can't relocate. I live in such a remote area that there are no jobs here. My wife and I are undergoing IVF, mortgage payments, my wife is back in school getting an RN degree with 18 months left to go. Starting to feel the stress today.
Any advice?
29 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 35.6 ms ] threadI don't see any problem with asking for more severance, as 3 weeks seems really really low. Contact the group that is handling your "transition".
But they don't have to give it to you.
If there are papers to sign in exchange, negotiation is possible, but may or may not be worth it. At a minimum it is worth closely reading what is contained in those documents. At the midlevel paying an attorney to review them is not unreasonable. At the top end, hiring an attorney to negotiate the severance contract (and that's what sign this for that boils down to) on your behalf is always an option.
When I say it might not be worth negotiating, I mean that moving forward toward a new job is a necessary step and negotiating severance is a step in a different direction (a potential distraction). On the other hand, if you have a relationship with a higher up, calling them and saying that three weeks seems a bit thin after nine years, might be all it takes...with the caveat that the context is sensitive and framing anything in a way that puts the other party on the defensive will probably backfire...they will or won't find their own way to seeing an "injustice". Let them draw their own conclusions. Heck, you might even wind up getting a position elsewhere in the organization.
Good luck.
Reach out to me if you are looking for quant work. I might be able to help on the short term.
Just remember: If you are in the USA and in an at-will state, they don't owe you anything upon termination (other than unused vacation pay, etc, as per your state laws)
The best opp'y is if you have a good relationship with someone higher up in the organization who's still around and might be willing to do you a favor -- possibly (though unlikely) a bit more cash, but possibly a job referral, especially useful in your industry.
What leverage? Well remember I said the company "doesn't plan to have a future relationship with you." The only leverage you really have is that they might have a future relationship with you: i.e. you don't take the severance and (lowest risk for them) you may no longer be bound by NDAs etc or (highest risk for them) you might sue them, so they're paying in exchange for you agreeing that there are no open issues between you, possibly among other things.
Also, straight cash is unlikely to appear (among other things why you? What about that other person of ${ethnicity}/${gender}/${age} different from you? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen and HR will likely quash such a suggestion.
BUT: you could offer to help "tidy up loose ends, document anything, etc" in exchange for them covering your COBRA until you get a new job / six months go by, which might be a suitable fig leaf if you know a higher up.
And the company can't extend your normal health insurance except via (taxably) paying COBRA premiums as the health plans require that eligible employees work a minimum number of hours/week, typically 32.
Beside that, just accept that you no longer work there and look at them just like you would look at any other company. Can you offer them something that would help them?
A good thing to offer is that, once they rebuild the team/hire new people, you can help them get up to speed. It is not confrontational, it focuses on something positive for the company too making them think about better days, and you are not committing to anything in the short term (and you probably won't have to do anything in the long term either).
We had an employee refuse to sign them after we fired them, for cause. A few weeks later he asked for a larger severence than we initially offered. We offered a month's worth of pay, and he wanted way more than that if I recall correctly. We said no. He then lied, said he was fired for racial discrimination. Threatened a lawsuit. We caved and gave him an extra month of severence. He signed the papers and took his two months of free pay.
Aside: I personally hired this person. I noticed big performance problems early, and personally mentored him for six months before coming to the conclusion that we needed to let him go. I was the one accused of racism. It hurt. I lobbied for more time to turn this hire around, I gave him so much attention and extra time to turn things around. Only to be lied about in the end. Worst moment in my career so far. I wanted to fight any lawsuit-- we had tons of documentation and evidence that the fire was 100% performance related including commits demonstrating clearly these problems (and extensive notes documenting the improvement plan). But our employement lawyer and the CEO figured it would just be easier to give the severence.
Anyway. You may have more leverage than you think. Though, just be ethical about how you handle it. They really need you to sign those papers just to tie up the legal loose ends.
Can I ask why you hired him in the first place?
Accusing someone of racism and threatening to destroy their career for a few thousand dollars.
These human beings are disgusting.
Everything is up to negotiation. You do have leverage, your lawyer will tell you how much.
The process would be:
1. Don't sign anything.
2. You hire a lawyer who specializes in employment disputes. If the severance package has a deadline, your lawyer will email the company saying they represent you and need more time to respond.
3. You meet with your lawyer and explain your situation. My lawyer explained to me that when you get laid off, your company is breaking your employment contract. That means they have to provide you with compensation to make you whole. The amount of compensation depends on your skills, experience, job level, age, health of the job market and any other specific circumstances. Basically, the company has to compensate you enough money that would make you whole - which is be employed again. The compensation is based on the time it will take you to get a new job. 3 weeks is kinda short. Also, there maybe rules-of-thumb: in my city in Canada, we expect to get a minimum of 1 month of salary for each year you worked with the company. I have seen some very generous companies give 2 months of salary per year worked.
4. The lawyer will write up a demand letter asking for more severance. From that point on the lawyer does all the communications with the company. My company also offered employment services to help me find a new job which i didn't need, so my lawyer said ask the company to pay that to me in cash... was like $5K. My lawyer said there is zero risk in sending a demand letter - never will get a worse package.
5. Depending on the size of the company, they may expect that a certain percentage of employees will dispute their severance package - which means they already planned to give complainers a bit more... as in, already authorized, you ask, they give... easy.
6. My company said "No" to the demand letter. They pointed out that there were many jobs that I would be hired for and my severance is enough. They provided the job postings that I would be suitable for.
7. In response, my lawyer told me to go through each job posting and write a couple sentences of why I am not qualified for them. My lawyer sent that to the company.
8. Company responded with a higher severance, an extra few months of salary on top of the 1 month per year and the $5K mentioned above. The legal costs were less than $2K.
Also, I worked with lawyers at the company I was employed with. I asked one lawyer who I got along with to refer one. That referred lawyer was too expensive (big name law firm who works for corporations).
If you don't know any lawyers, you can ask anyone who works with lawyers. For example, if you have a friend who is banker or real-estate agent. Their lawyer will know other lawyers.
Most importantly, you should have a conversation with a couple lawyers (ie. interview them): "Here is my situation, do you think I can get more?", "If we ask for more, how do you go about it?", "To keep costs down, do you have a legal associate to do the work?".
Since you are interview them, calling local employment lawyers that you find on google is OK too. The 15 minute phone call is free, lawyers have to do marketing/business development too.
On a different topic: you mentioned stress. My advice to you is to make sure you don't turn it into a bad time in your life. You have control. You can make it better by doing things such as losing weight, improving your golf game, traveling locally/camping (to keep costs down), visiting family, building a side project, contribute to open source. All of these things give a silver-lining and promote a positive optimistic outlook. Also, these things are great in a future job interview when they ask "so what did you do with your time off?" A fun, positive answer is best. You won't be unemployed forever.
Libertarian to the max here.
I'm always ready to walk within 2 seconds. Do people have no shame?
Don’t sign anything, find a good lawyer, get all the contracts etc. and put it in one folder. Keep the end in mind and don’t let the stress take over your thinking.
There were zero employee performance problems. The company is in California. I am in NY.
However, I don't see any downside in asking for more severance. The worst the company could do is say "no".