Enhance deal qualification for staffing with airSlate SignNow

How to create outlook signature

- This video is all about severance. In this video, I'm gonna explain how to increase your leverage so that you can negotiate for more money. At the end of the video, I'll give you six bargaining chips that are absolute gold. (upbeat music) First, let's cover some basics. What in the heck is a severance agreement? It's very simple. It's a contract, a contract in which you are giving up your right to sue the company in exchange for money. That's it. The whole point of severance agreements from the employer's perspective is to buy peace of mind, buy certainty. When they slide that check across the table and you sign that severance agreement, you cannot sue them, for the most part, unless it's a terribly written severance agreement, which is extremely rare. These are very standardized and very formulaic and very enforceable, for the most part. So once you sign that severance deal, you're pretty much out of luck for ever pursuing legal action against that company for what happened in the past. So, with that said, let's talk a little bit more. Severance is not a right. Just because the company has given severance to another person doesn't mean they're obligated to give it to you. Just because they gave Joe who worked there for 30 years a $100,000 severance deal doesn't mean they have to give Mary who worked there for 40 years more or any. There's no legal requirement that they do that. It really all comes down to a bargain for exchange. How much legal risk does the company see in that employee suing them? How much are they willing to pay to buy peace of mind? That's what it's all about. Some companies have a informal policy or even a formalized policy in the employee handbook that says if you've been at the company for a certain amount of time, we'll give you a certain amount of weeks of severance. Now, generally those are not bargained for contracts. They're more policies that are not enforceable as contracts. So again, the company might choose not to follow its own policy when applying severance to you. Frustrating, I know. More companies, nowadays anyway, have kind of a CYA approach to severance agreements, cover your. They're trying to protect themselves. When they view a problematic employee as somebody who might sue them, they'll fire that employee, they'll offer them severance, but when they fire somebody who's not a problematic employee, just somebody who's not producing as well as they should, is a nice guy, they might not offer that person a severance deal. Well you might think maybe I should just be a jerk at work so they offer me a severance when they fire me. No, don't do that! Just be a good employee, and they'll be less likely to fire you in the first place. But that's besides the point. Okay, once you get to the level that you've been fired, what should you do to increase your leverage? Should you automatically threaten hiring a lawyer? Well no. First thing's first, the circumstances around your termination. Focus on that. Are they suspect? Are your spidey senses tingling that the company has somehow violated the law? Do you feel like they've acted very strangely towards you in comparison to other employees who have been fired? Are you of a different demographic or a different class or a different type of employee that is unusual and they're treating you very differently? If your spidey senses are tingling over your termination, it's very smart for you to first contact an employment lawyer, have a consultation, tell them the basics of your fact pattern, and then hear what the lawyer has to say. If the lawyer says oh, you might have a very good case, then you might have a very good ability to increase your leverage and negotiate for more money, or you could hire that lawyer to negotiate for more money. On the other hand, if you contact a lawyer and that lawyer says look, you don't have a case at all, I don't think you should pursue that whatsoever, well maybe you aren't gonna have much legal leverage to bargain for more money in the first place. But, with that said, there are ways to increase leverage aside from the legal landscape. Yes, you can threaten hiring a lawyer. Generally doesn't work. You generally don't want to threaten a company, especially 'cause they're much bigger than you and especially 'cause they have lawyers at their disposal, unless you actually can back it up. So if you've talked to a lawyer and they actually say you have something here, you're gonna be more likely to negotiate for more money, and threaten that you have a lawyer, and be able to back it up. But aside from threatening a lawyer or actually having good legal grounds, how can you increase your leverage? Well, practical approach, a sympathetic approach. The company's firing you. You now don't have a job, and if you have children or a spouse who depends on you or parents who depend on you or whatever, whatever your circumstance is, if you're comfortable and you feel like you can get progress with it, go at 'em from the sympathetic angle. You're really putting me in a tough spot. I don't know how I'm gonna feed my kids. Look, if you do this, I'm gonna be homeless. You can always try those angles, if appropriate, if you think it'll work. Unfortunately, it only works sometimes. I've helped people go that route and gotten them a lot of money. I've watched lots of people try to go that route and fail miserably. It just depends on the situation. So, by and large, the basics are you're giving up your right to sue them in exchange for money, so you wanna figure out what your legal grounds are and you especially wanna figure out what your bargaining chips are before you start the negotiation process. Now that you understand the backdrop of why severance agreements exist, let's look at some of the basic components of a severance agreement. What's in the actually written agreement? First and foremost, one of the first big paragraphs is usually the release. That's the paragraph where you are basically, the paragraph that you sign that says I'm gonna give up my right to sue them for X, Y, and Z. Generally there's all sorts of discrimination terms, harassment terms, wrongful termination, whistleblower terms, wage terms where you can't pursue them for those types of claims, and then there's always a broad claim at the end that says or any other legal issue that you might have had during your employment at this company. That release should either before or shortly thereafter follow with a paragraph that says in exchange for that release, you're gonna get paid a certain amount of money, and make sure the exact amount is in that severance agreement, not what the HR representative or the lawyer or the CEO says, but what's in the agreement is what matters, so pay very close attention. Also pay very close attention to the terms. Monthly, or is it all in one lump sum? You gotta make sure you figure all that out. Another big thing that you absolutely have to pay attention to in severance agreement are the deadlines. Typically, when a severance agreement is presented to an employee, they say you only have 10 days or two weeks or 21 days in which to evaluate this, and get and either sign it or send it back to us. Otherwise, the agreement is void and that you can't, if you sign it after that deadline, they don't have to honor it. So it's very important that you figure out what those deadlines are before you start thinking about negotiating because you need to know what your timeframe is. Third, there's almost always a non-disparagement clause in that severance agreement where you can't go out and bash the company online, you can't do this, you can't do that. Pay close attention to that. A lot of employees who are being fired are disgruntled and they want to call their coworkers who are still working there and be like can you believe this BS, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don't want to do that if you sign a severance agreement because it might void the agreement, they might sue you, and then try to get all that money back, so be very careful to pay close attention to the exact words in the disparagement clause. For employees over the age of 40, there's an Age Discrimination in Employment Act provision typically in these severance agreements that say if you're over the age of 40, there's seven days in which you have to consider the severance agreement even after you signed it in which you can rescind that agreement, following the protocol set up in the agreement, and then you have 21 days to consider it even before you sign it. They have to give you that long. It's kind of a quirky law, but it's there. So if you're over the age of 40 and that provision is missing, contact a lawyer. It's important. In most California agreements, I'm a California employment lawyer, in most California agreements, there's a provision about the Civil Code Section 1542 which basically says you're giving up your right to any lawsuit against the company that you know about, and any lawsuit that you don't even know about that you might have against the company. Pretty standard in most severance agreements, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Then there's also, in almost all severance agreements, a whole bunch of lawyer gibberish, integration clauses, all sorts of stuff that won't make a whole lot of sense, but if you focus on the release, the amount of money, the deadlines, and some of this other stuff, the rest of it should fall into place, but if you have any questions and you feel like anything is strange in there, contact an employment lawyer. I can't emphasize that enough. First and foremost, it seems obvious but a lot of people are terrified to do it. You're never gonna get more money unless you ask for more money, and you shouldn't ask for the amount that you want. You should ask for more than the amount that you want. If they come at you with a two-week severance package and you want three months of severance, you shouldn't ask for three months 'cause they'll never give it to you. If you ask for three months, they'll give you four weeks, so you come at them with I need six months of severance minimum, and they'll come at, and so you guys will negotiate this way until you meet in the middle. So that's pretty obvious, negotiations 101, but a lot of people are first of all scared to ask for more, and secondly, they ask for the number that they want, not more than the number that they want. But what is also really important to know about this, and you should be very careful about how much you ask for, is that there is a small risk that if you come at them with a number too high, or if you try to negotiate with them at all, that they'll rescind the current offer that's on the table. So if they've offered you two weeks and you come at them and say I need three years of severance, give it to me now, they might just go, ah, we're not gonna even offer you two weeks now because you're acting unreasonable. So be careful with how aggressively you approach it. If you're at all concerned that the employer might do that, contact a lawyer. The next really important thing and next bargaining chip I often talk about is delaying the termination date. Let's be real. It's a lot easier to get a job if you already have a job, and the only way to look at an employer in an interview and say with a straight face that I'm still employed is if you're still employed, so get it in writing that they'll delay the termination date three months, six months or whatever, because it's very helpful for you to say that I'm still employed. Now, with that said, you should also very much think and using that as a bargaining chip. If they refuse to do that, say okay, if you don't want to do that, pay me an additional two weeks or six weeks or two months of severance, whatever way you can increase your leverage by asking for something, making them uncomfortable, then turning around and say okay, fine, just give me an additional two weeks. Furthermore, pay very close attention to the payment terms. Most companies will come at you and say okay, we'll pay you four weeks of severance, and we'll pay you during the typical payroll period over the next, so you'll get two payments. Say no, I'm not okay with that, please give it to me in a lump sum the moment I sign this. Well they might not like that. They might have cash flow issues. You say okay, if you can't pay it to me in a lump sum, as opposed to paying me four weeks of severance, pay me six weeks of severance. They might be more agreeable to do something like that as opposed to a lump sum, also another way to increase the value of your severance agreement. Very thoughtful. If you have health benefits through the company and they're terminating you and you're negotiating over severance is talk about who's paying for your health benefits. Try to get the company to pay for an additional three months, six months, or whatever through the company system, and that can go hand in hand with them delaying your termination date. But also, super important, if they're not willing to do that, to pay the health benefits through the company, then ask them to increase your total severance package so that you can pay for your COBRA payments so that you and your family are not uninsured just because you were fired. Fifth, unemployment. Most people, when they get fired, they file for unemployment, and you can ask for in the severance agreement in writing that the company not contest your unemployment claim. Very common for companies to do that without question. Six and finally, and this is super important, you can ask for a good job reference. It's really simple. It doesn't cost them anything. They're almost always willing to give you a job reference if you ask for it, unless you've been a tyrant at the company. So be a good employee, and when they do fire you, then ask for a job reference, to delay your separation date, and give you lots of money and they'll be more likely to do it. Well, anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. Take care.