Understand "At Will Employement"
Hi Everyone! First time posting anything here. I'm by no means an expert but I've worked a lot of placed and learned a lot of things. One conversation I've had with a lot of people lately has do to with the reasons an employer can fire an employee. I work in Michigan, which (as far as I know from my research) is an "employment at will" state. This means that any employer in Michigan can terminate employment at any time for any reason that is not illegal or against a previous contractual agreement.
I think there is a lot of confusion regarding the rights of workers in Michigan. I think the bottom line is if you're not in a union and your employer is not (or, at least, you can't prove) firing you for reasons that go agaist a state or federal statute, then you very likely can be fired for many reasons that may or may not make sense.
One thing I hear about a lot (I work with a lot of people and students...so I hear a lot of things) is that there are personality conflicts in the workplace, and these conflicts seeminly lead to someone being fired from their job. Another reason for termination that comes up a lot in conversations is being fired for wanting or needing to attend to family/family obligations, caregiving, etc.
I'm interested to hear what you all think of this. Have you had experiences like this? What have you done to overcome this situation?
Hi Jamie Stone - thanks for sharing this. A lot of the conversations that I see on here are from people who live in an at-will state, and don't understand why they have been fired.
I know that Melissa Kline has worked in HR, perhaps she can be of some assistance on at will employment and what you can do in recourse.
I hope this helps! I'm looking forward to hearing everyone else's input on these questions!
Excellent Question Jamie Stone ! Termination or separation of employment for unjust reasons continues to be a hot topic not only within this community but throughout the American workforce.
Part of the frustration and anger expressed by employees come from a lack of understanding the At-Will Employment policies, lack of support offered from employer HR representatives once a claims are filed, and the lack of training or awareness on how to properly monitor, track and report unjust practices in the workforce.
Personality conflict experiences like the one describer by @AngieColeman** in her recent conversation What do you suppose? is a perfect example on how employees feel helplessly targeted by management but unable to find opportunities for conflict resolution.
Discrimination and sexual harassment, for instance, fall outside the at-will employment protection borders afforded to employers but these are extremely difficult to for employees to prove. I think more employee awareness and training by non employer third party intermediary resources are needed in order to provide a fair and accurate best practices policies and procedures designed to help workers identify, account, and report bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment, and other unjust workplace practices.
It will be interesting to see how government and employers manage this unfortunate workplace trend as they push for more skilled workers and employee retention initiatives.
Thanks for raising this issue and question in the community. I'm very interested on seeing how other members respond!
Here's another example of an unjust termination experience. @KyleLucas claims he was a "loyal and knowledgeable employee" over the last 7 years at that company until he was recently released for "reaching the 12 points that the company sets as their threshold for being able to terminate employees justifiably". See, Unjustified Termination?
How can an employees perception on their work performance and the companies employee performance records be so different. Was Kyle receiving regular one on one management/employee performance reviews? Was his firing justified?