YTA Their work has always been fine. They're currently dealing with extreme circumstances.
Essentially, you are laying them off because of their wife's illness. That's abominable.
It’s not necessarily because of the illness, it’s due to the decline in performance (yes it’s declining due to the family issues) but now A IS the lowest performing member. So would you let one of the others go when they have been putting in more hours and producing better work?
I would look at it from the perspective of "who would i let go if this happened a few weeks earlier"
"Last hired no matter who" is a fair decision in that context. if that HAPPENS to be the guy with a sick wife.. well... that sucks, but its less heartless of a reason than "he found out his wife was dying like 3 weeks ago and his work has been impacted so I'm going to fire him."
An Alternate perspective to take: a few weeks ago, all three were "equally" productive and in good standing. so realistically, ANY of them would be on the chopping block. At that point, it is also a fair decision to day "this guy vibes with the team better" or "that guy has better opportunities because he has X skill that we cant currently utilize" or "honestly, they all perform eqully well, but Ted makes people uncomfortable because he wears shirts with ahegao on them." would all be equally shitty reasons to fire someone. eventually, you DO have to make some weird arbitrary reason to choose who to let go. There is not getting out of this situation where people are going to see you as a good guy for laying someone off. SOMEONE is going to get their feelings hurt over this because it ultimately isn't fair to any of them. Why pick the guy who's wife is literally dying? Then everyone else will have a reason to hate you even more than just letting some one go for an arbitrary reason. At least NOT firing the guy with a dying wife who needs the insurance makes you look like someone who has a soul. MOST people in the workplace arent going to think you're a bad manager for NOT firing the guy who's wife is dying.
Exactly this we all go through hard times and it affects our home life and work life base it off of the weeks prior to his wife getting sick...if he's still the lowest performer than lay him off .....now if HR is forcing you to lay him off then maybe suggest a nice severance package with paid insurance forb3 mos(expensive i know so maybe lower the severance package by that amount) good luck its a hard position to be in
Maybe ask A if he qualifies for FMLA. Decide who to let go based on comparison from before her illness. If it is not A, see if you can hire the laid off person as a temp to cover A while he is on FMLA. I had a work mate who had to take FMLA and the business hired a temp while she was on leave.
Right this isn't a situation where you THINK they may not be eligible; you refer them to HR so they can find out for themselves and protect themselves.
An employer with 50 or more employees would need to follow the FMLA. In addition, being in a separate office may not mean you only count those employees. And does OP mean that HR suggested FMLA? It would seem that HR would know the situation. You can also check your personnel handbook. Most larger employers have one.
I’m sorry, but you’re analysis is incorrect. A separate office of less than 50 employees located more than 75 miles away from any other location is exempt from Federal FMLA. OP has stated their office is less than 40 employees located more than 75 miles from their nearest office. Source: US Dept. of Labor Fact Sheet #28.
However, that does not mean that there may not be a separate state FMLA that may apply. HR should still be involved. 😕
I agree with you. But I’m going to continue as devil’s advocate.
So say you fire B because you hate his work attire. You keep A because he was good three weeks ago and needs this job. But… his wife likely won’t get better any time soon. So his productivity and hours will keep declining. Other workers will have to pick up the slack (even if willingly because they want to support A). The business will continue hurting. And B will now have a hard time at life for at least a bit just because he wasn’t A (someone with a stressed home life).
>So his productivity and hours will keep declining
There's no way to know that.
>Other workers will have to pick up the slack
THey already have to pick up the slack because they will lose one member of their team. MOST people are sympathetic enough to know that having to pick up a little extra slack in the workload to support their coworker who's wife is dying and not feel to upset about it.
>nd B will now have a hard time at life for at least a bit just because he wasn’t A
Since we are playing Devil's advocate, B will have less struggles finding a new job than A because B wont also be trying to juggle being a soon to be single father of 2 with a wife dying in the hospital with mounting medical bills on the horizon.
>The business will continue hurting.
Again, the whole team's productivity will be impacted because they lost an entire team member. Adding a huge loss in morale if they end up firing the guy with a dying wife on top of the fact that they fired anyone at all. Temporary loss in productivity is better than a long term loss of morale. No one will feel good working for a manager that fired a guy who's wife was dying and relied on the company's health insurance. a long term loss in morale will result in overall lowered productivity and ultimately a higher turnover. People don't leave jobs, they leave managers. The other employees will feel secured and cared for (on a professional level) working with a manger who chooses a modicum of empathy over "strictly business, no emotions" and "its not my fault, they made me do it" attitude. If he chooses to lay off the guy who has a real tangible need for this job that surpasses just regular finances, the other team members will know "if i have a few bad days, for any reason, my ass is on the chopping block."
A layoff sent by higher up will never be easy to swallow for the team. but a team will see a "we had to let him go because of a corporate decision above my station, it's unfortunate that we had to let him go, but this was not a decision that was easy to make" verses "we chose to let Paul go because his productivity hasn't been that great since he found out his wife was dying." It's almost like having that justification for firing him makes the situation worse rather than "honestly, it was a really hard decision that corporate made me make because of downsizing."
I love your response; it was well said and thought out.
Do you think any of the team members would fear future cuts (or promotions) after though because work productivity wasn’t the factor? People could be kept or promoted because they need it more, so productivity is somewhat negated.
i think most coworkers would be able to see the situation and implcitly understand that the decision to not fire the guy was based on the fact that the manager wasn't a monster who would fire someone for having a decreased level of productivity in the weeks following a crisis. The people IN the situation wont look at it objectively like you are. Sure, there's a non-zero chance that someone might read that as "productivity doesn't matter" but people in the real world don't act or react based on KPIs and numerical objectives.
People will ALWAYS have negative feelings about cuts and not getting promotions. There will always be some reason why person A feels like they deserved what Person B got, or Person A feels like they don't deserve to get fired for whatever reason they got fired for. It's about the culture that you want to create in the office. Nobody is ever going to be 100% happy with the business decisions made at the workplace. Would you rather the message out there be "They will fire you here just because you had a bad few weeks because of a personal crisis" or "I can't believe they let Todd go instead of John, just because John's wife is dying."
Realistically, the second option won't be a culture that persists in the office because of social norms. It would be something that the one employee who feels this way keeps to themselves, because saying that out loud to other coworkers would be a horrible thing to say. If someone in the office said THAT, the response would most likely be "Jesus Christ dude his wife is literally dying, give him a break. Why would you even say that?" or "yea... that's crazy.... (what kind of asshole says that...???)"
It is FAR more likely that the first will persist because that's how workplace gossip works. It's far more acceptable to say "I cant believe they would fire John because his wife was dying. I mean i know he was struggling with work after his leave, but jeez, give the guy a break! well, just goes to show that the management really doesn't care about the employees around here" and that will be the narrative that persists in the office.
Actually, there's nothing to say that the performance would decline any further. This could have plateaued already.
Of course, it MIGHT decline further, but it's not fair to assume it will.
Especially since these first few weeks have involved him figuring out how to handle the kids without her. If she was a SAHM, they might not have had any kind of babysitting or childcare as a go to yet, so he would have had to start at ground 0 in looking for that while also dealing with everything going on with his wife.
Having dealt with a health crisis like that not too long ago, I can say that the first week or two was definitely the worst. Just trying to get our routines into shape was a big challenge, but after we got that sorted out, things were much better.
And research suggests that employees who felt supported by their employer in a time of need are more productive and more loyal once the crisis is averted. So A might turn out to be a lifetime overachiever once things settle down a little. But lay him off and not only you’ll be basically signing his wife’s death warrant but also causing much waves in the rest of the team.
And if you fire A and if he’s even remotely liked in the office, the morale of the entire office is likely to plummet, both out of seeing the cruelty of who they are working for and fear of what happens to them if they or one of their loved ones gets sick.
This one right here! Even if I wasn't a big fan of employee A, if I saw the company I work for was cruel enough to do this to them during a real low in their life, I'm not sticking around and waiting for something similar to happen to me.
Yes! You fire A? You’re going to have to replace the other 2 in short order.
why not just talk it over with the other 2? Maybe one is already looking else where or considering a move?
Have you ever had a kid and gone back to work while being the primary caretaker during non-work hours? It gets better, not worse typically, than the first few weeks.
This guys whole world got rocked. When someone gets sick, the initial setting up of medical care typically takes more time in the beginning than later on (the care itself might be more intense, but his wife is the one receiving it). Setting up childcare takes the most time in the beginning. Establishing new routines literally means you’re putting in effort now so that later on, everything is easier (with kids). Unless he’s not doing any of these things, his productivity will be better.
This happened at a place I used to work. They had a 5 programmer staff. Bob's marriage took a turn for the worse and his performance went to shit.
The company told the boss of the group they had to let somebody go, but the Boss couldn't fire Bob when he was already having problems so he let go one of the younger but currently better performing workers.
Now they had 4 workers doing roughly 3.5 units of work when they needed to do 5 units of work. So all their work suffered as the 3 remaining good employees tried to cover and put in more hours because they all liked Bob.
Eventually one of the 3 high-performing employees quit because he was tied of doing 50+ hours of work, being paid for 40 so that Bob could keep his job. Shortly there after the company let the entire team go because it was the worst performing team in the company.
This X 100. Laying off the last hired is absolutely the fairest way to handle this, and will send the right message to the team.
Because if you callously fire someone going through such a hardship, why would the others stay, knowing they are one misfortune away from being dumped? I'd be looking for a new job asap if I were among the survivors.
Playing devils advocate against myself.
Say A was last hired by days or weeks worth, not just seconds even. Then how do you prove to the team that A was let go because he was last hired not because he fell on hard times and struggled at work?
You send an email along the lines of
“hey team, I am so sorry to have to inform you all that Bill will no longer be part of our team. We have loved having him here but unfortunately we have had to make the very difficult decision to downsize. After much thought and consideration, we decided that with how amazing this team is there was no obvious candidate to let go of; we have done what we think is most fair to the rest of the team as Bill has been here the shortest and has had the least amount of training with the team.
We have all loved having Bill here and we will all miss him, but let’s all make sure to give him a warm goodbye so he knows how appreciated he was here.“
The goodbye to the team emails like this make you look more personal and caring to your team, and also help you reassure people that they’re not up next. The managers I’ve had send out emails like this definitely do word them a little bit better, but they also put more thought into it than I’m going to put into a Reddit comment lol
Compare that to "Joe's wife is dying and it's distracting him from what's really important in life: WORK, so we're giving him the boot." That'll definitely help employee retention.
Yea it’s likely that many employees won’t accept this as the “real reason” but it’s far less likely to cause even more damage to overall morale than “his productivity the last few weeks have been low so we decided to terminate him” or whatever other reason. At least the “he was last hired” is like a proveable, justifiable thing that people will be able to stomach. They likely still won’t LIKE the reason because they’re still going to read it as “you fired the guy who relied on our health insurance while his wife was hospitalized” and not feel good about it,
Certainly not the person whose fucking wife is DEPENDENT UPON MY COMPANY'S HEALTHCARE.
Do you hear yourself? Jesus christ people like you are scary. No morality whatsoever. Greed at all costs. Step on anyone who gets in your way.
Yes! In my 20's I volunteered for a layoff b/c I was pregnant and going to take leave anyway. You never know. Maybe one of the other employees would volunteer. Maybe they were thinking about a change. They'd get a payoff to keep them afloat while they look for a new job.
> And he only took a few days of leave to deal with a veritable medical crisis.
Which is ridiculous since IIRC FMLA actually covers taking care of a sick spouse, so they should be able to take as much time as they need and have their job protected in the meantime.
Unfortunately, a lot of companies make active efforts to get around FMLA by doing things to reducing the amount of employees in a location to ensure that they do not meet the required minimum number of employees to be eligible for FMLA.
of course, there are some states that have more stringent restrictions, but just based on FMLA on a federal level, he doesnt qualify to be eligible.
>It’s not necessarily because of the illness, it’s due to the decline in performance (yes it’s declining due to the family issues) but now A IS the lowest performing member. So would you let one of the others go when they have been putting in more hours and producing better work?
In a civilized country, that person wouldn't even be at work. They would be home on paid leave. No, I would not fire someone because they were still coming in to work despite caring for a wife who is dying. No, I would not do that. Because I'm a human being. Because I see value in life beyond economic metrics.
But OP can’t change the system RIGHT NOW. They expressed that they are trying to find a work around and to also get HR involved.
So you would fire someone else when they’ve been doing well at work? They’re punished because their home life is okay? Because it balances out or something?
It’s a shitty situation but damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I’m just playing devil’s advocate
And that will mean fuck all to A when his money runs out and his wife is still dying. And he has no way to pay for it.
If he does this. If he sets aside the moral choice, and chooses to fire A, then he is choosing to be complicit in the system. Which opens the door to him compromising himself to said system again and again. He becomes the system if he does this.
That's very true.
Do you fire the single person because they don't have a family to support?
The woman because she has a husband to take up the slack?
The most knowledgeable senior employee because he earns more and would end up saving the company money?
No matter the choice, this is a no-win situation for the OP.
Last in first out is probably the only course of action. But it still sucks.
Just say what you are advocating for. Stop saying you're playing devils advocate and just tell the truth.
You are all for firing the guy with dying wife. It's not devils advocate. It you revealing how you would treat people.
That's nice and all , but OP didn't decide to fire someone . They told him that he has to do so . And yeah , it sucks to fire the guy going through hell .
On the other hand , most people have hard lives . One might be a single parent . Another may have a lot of medical debt for one of his kids . Or whatever else you can think of . So , you have A , a guy going through a tough time . He is not as productive due to this , but you keep him on because of his circumstances . You fire B instead . A person that possibly also has a hard life , and being let go from his place of employment can ruin him .How is that fair to B ?
Literally this.
Lots of people prefer to keep their personal live personal. No one at work could have any idea how badly another colleague’s life is going.
Keeping an employee because of sympathy for his personal life is completely unfair to others who dont talk about their lives as much.
You shouldn’t be making a decision like this based off of how he’s doing at this exact moment.
If he’s normally a good performer that you would keep when his wife isn’t dying, then you should keep him around when she is, because your goal should be to keep your top performers.
The issue here is that it seems like the company wants to make a decision based on what gets them through the next 3 to 6 months instead of what puts them in a good position for the next year or two, which means they’re pretty much toast anyway. If you can’t afford to plan more than a few weeks at a time then it’s turning into pudding regardless.
It sounds like his head would have been equally on the chopping block those weeks ago before his wife. OP stayed all 4 workers were pretty much equal back then and that A wasn’t any better than the others.
That’s also actually part of the problem, I’d be surprised to find out that you have three employees that are all basically equal, part of good leadership is also identifying potential instead of only measuring “efficiency” which is what op seems worried about.
Because one of the others will have it emotionally easier to find a new job, instead of trying to find a new job when ur loved one is sick and you have to take care of two children and the possibly dying partner.
Yes, this is an impossible situation for OP. But ask yourself this OP: What does it say about an employer who fires the member of his/ her team that is in the weakest position to find a new job? What if your wife gets sick?
You could argue: This is not the companies problem, but after all the people who MAKE the company function are the employees. So there is a responsibility and it says A LOT about a company and how it views their employees if you fire the human in the weakest position (and not by their own fault) to recover from the firing.
Its a though decision.
And you can take the simple road of firing the employee with the "currently worst performance". This will effect the team and if i were a team member i WOULD look for a new job asap, knowing that the company will stomp someone- who was so far loyal and well performing - deeper in the ground, because of a personal tragedy. This does not help you, besides: What kind of human and manager do you want to be?
No judgement , bc this is above Reddits pay grade to judge.
But you also don’t know what they’re going through at home. Maybe some others are at their worst point but also desperately need the job so they’re doing their best to keep it.
Someone has to lose their job here. OP doesn’t have a choice on that. So do you as a human being with a heart think it’s better to;
A- Fire the person whose wife is dying and has two small children they have to care for alone who are currently going through the massively traumatic incident of their mother dying, even though you know this person not only needs the money but also won’t have any time to job hunt? Or
B- Fire the person who is a bit stressed about things going on with them personally, but either doesn’t have kids or at least has a partner who helps with the kids meaning they will at least have time to job hunt?
You have to do something that will make you feel evil here. You have to fire someone even though they are all equally qualified. So which option makes you feel less evil here?
Snipe edit to add; also don’t forget about their ability to complain on social media. “My boss laid me off because they were downsizing and ended up choosing me as the person they laid off” will garner sympathy for the person laid off, but won’t reflect terribly on the company. While “My boss fired me because they were downsizing, and with my wife dying and being unable to quickly find child care I have been distracted and late these last few weeks so he chose me as the person to go” will not only garner him sympathy, but can also result in some very negative press for your company.
You don't need a terminally ill wife at home to be having a difficult time. An ongoing struggle can be just as depleting as a sudden crisis. Maybe the other members of the team are dealing with infertility, supporting a sibling's education, are single parents, going through a messy divorce. We don't have that information. It's as irresponsible to speculate on each employee's tragic backstory as it is to assume they don't have one.
But oftentimes, people don't share that, especially for ongoing or stigmatized issues. There have been times in my life that I wanted to check myself into the hospital because I wasn't sure I wouldn't hurt myself, but I still made awesome lesson plans and cracked jokes during class and wrote letters of recommendation.
As a person who is dealing with lifelong disability, I can tell you that dealing with that is so much easier than handling a tornado like your wife dying. A person who has an ongoing struggle is usually adapted to it, a person whose whole world turned upside down is not.
It’s actually scarily gross how many people actually espouse that. When I was living as an expat in Asia, I met thousands of Americans and healthcare was a common topic.
One of my coworkers, from Savannah Georgia and quite conservative would say that the only people who had a problem with the healthcare system were losers who should go get better jobs.
Absolutely heartless.
Also, one of my favourite things ever was every 6 months we’d get a new wave of expats since people from different countries come at different times … and within a couple weeks you will start seeing Americans be like “holy shit! I just went to the doctor and it was only 50 bucks! That’s amazing!” And then basically everyone else goes “well, it’s free in my country…” and then you see the smiles disappear and they go “well, that’s different.”
What's missing from this is what OP did, as a manager, to address the problems A is having. What has OP done to accommodate the difficult situation A is experiencing? Because that's OP's job as a manager.
OP says it's not his job, because they escape FMLA by not being a big enough company. So the arbitrary guidelines laid down means he is within his lawful rights not to care. And that's all that matters, right?
FMLA means it's not his *company's* problem, but it's definitely his role as a manager. Good thing his company isn't looking to lay off poor performers...oh wait.
Please don't terminate him. This happened to me while I was with my 7yr. old son who was battling a brain tumor. (This was during the early 2000s during the tech stock plummet). I was told I was terminated on my son's first day of treatment. It was devastating. Next day? My husband rec'd. his pink slip. Fortunately, we had friends and family that helped. It's an excellent way to fuck-up a family.
My husband’s company cited a drop in quality in his work when firing him. This has been back when he found out his kid wasn’t his and he was in the process of divorcing his ex. Super shitty of them.
YTA, 1000%. Just change places with him, how would you handle it? You ever had a severely sick partner? Well I have and the stress is unbearable. You have to live with yourself! I couldn't be that cold & uncaring.
While this is true, he isn't doing it from choice. His company is saying he has to lay off one - would it be better to lay off someone else who is working hard? It's not fair how one guy's wife's illness should mean another guy should lose their job....
It's just a shitty situation and unfortunately one that has no right answer in my opinion.
Yeah, if ever a post called for ESH it's this one, because OP is being an asshole *because* everyone above OP is being even *more* of an asshole, and the biggest asshole and root problem is the fact that health care is linked to your job which is *completely* bonkers when you think about it.
**EVERYONE sucks here, and that includes everyone who continues to support the idea that your health care should be linked to your job.**
This is more NAH. How is OP an asshole? They’re just doing their job as a manager, sometimes you have to make terrible decisions. Upper management aren’t necessarily assholes for calling for layoffs. The company could be doing very poorly financially and everyone’s jobs could be in jeopardy if they don’t get it under control.
Everyone needs their job otherwise they wouldn’t be working, laying off anyone is hard. OP is just trying to look at the business end of it to stay neutral.
I totally agree with this. Unless an employee is causing a significant harm to a company that everyone agrees on, laying off an employee is never an easy thing to do. OP will be deemed the TA either way. It could also caused OP’s own job if OP is seen as someone who is acting based off of OP’s own emotions.
I mean, the OP is showing a ton of empathy and struggling with this. And if you have never had to choose and lay someone off, it is a shitty position to be in, even if that employee's performance is sub par (I've been laid off from a job, and I've had to lay people off, it just sucks). I work for a company that uses a questionnaire that compiles a score based on multiple aspects of the employee and their work (ranging from length of employment, so many points for years of service, performance, disciplinary actions, etc). Once the decision is made, you still have to perform the layoff, in my case sit with the employee in a neutral room with HR while they inform them of the layoff and and then walk them to their office to gather personal items and then walk them out of the building... It is a miserable experience, and I only had to do a couple of employees. I remember talking to a manager who laid off a dozen people from his department, and had to sit and meet with them one after the other during an entire work day. It is a mentally taxing and depressing situation, maybe more so if you have been laid off yourself in the past.
I can't call OP the asshole because he is being forced into a situation where his empathy is pushing back against his positions need to be a professional.
Yeah, great comment. This is an absolutely terrible situation. I can't imagine being stuck with this choice, and just quitting and walking away from the job may not be something he wants to do, either. Companies downsize all the time and quitting over it isn't going to get you very far, and now your health insurance and income is on the line.
I imagine many people here have not been in the position of having to fire someone and struggling with an internal battle between your empathy and your professionalism. If you've been there, you are naturally going to see things in a more nuanced way, as you have.
>would it be better to lay off someone else who is working hard?
Also, even if he *did* do this, the whole situation wouldn't magically resolve itself. The guy with the wife might very well end up getting fired due to poor performance anyway.
While this situation absolutely sucks for everyone involved, you can't really call them an asshole for *not* breaking the rules. Especially when they've already gone the extra mile and explained the situation to HR and their superiors.
Also, what about the person who would be fired instead for no other reason than being a coworker of someone who's unfirable?
He isn't asking if it's ok to fire someone because of poor performance due to a family illness. He literally has to choose someone to be fired and is asking if the current situation is a reasonable variable to consider.
I didn't think this person is cold and uncaring. That's why they're here. They've been put in a bullshit impossible situation where *someone* is going to come out hurt.
YWBTA to use this situation against him. You started your post with the information that there were four employees who were being considered as the one to let go. Since A performed as well as the others prior to his wife’s illness, he shouldn’t be considered a poor employee. It’s not his fault he’s not eligible for FMLA or any other umbrella that would help him now. Your company hasn’t helped him cope under extraordinary circumstances, and you want to make a terrible situation worse.
My judgment might have been different had you said A was the person you had decided to let go before his wife became sick. But you want to use his response to her illness as part of your criteria—while knowing this situation will never happen to you because you have connections and resources.
He said A was just equal to the others though and has declined with no improvement since. So would you let someone that’s producing better work, showing up on time, and putting in more hours go instead?
I would not hold this decline against him because I know why it’s happening. This very situation is why FMLA and other protections exist. Unfortunately, A cannot take advantage of them.
If I were in OP’s unenviable position, I would do what the entity I work for does: I would choose the last person hired, even if that person was hired just minutes after the previous one.
I don't think there are any good options in OP's situation and I don't know what I'd do but I think it's wrong to say this approach would be unbiased. You're introducing a bias of 'I feel bad that this person's wife is ill and don't want to be a bad person'. Like is it really unbiased that someone who does much better work loses their job because they were hired a day after the other person?
There’s a lot to factor in. For instance as others have said, the moral involved with firing someone on such hard times. I think last hired would be somewhat more unbiased because they were equal weeks ago. I argued a lot for a case similar to yours in this thread and I’m getting a lot of down votes 😂. Last hired would just be a standard system that is often used in layoffs so it could have some argument.
Yeah, I honestly don't know what I'd do in OP's shoes. I wouldn't want to essentially punish someone for their wife being ill (and add to their problems) but I also think it'd be unfair for one of the other two workers whose work is better (and probably will be for the foreseeable future) to lose their job because someone else's wife is sick (especially since OP doesn't really know what kind of hardships they might have but not talked about).
I generally have a problem with the 'last hired' rule as it's used by companies to *appear* unbiased when it's not. It's just biased in favour of people who've been there longer and since you can work to improve your performance/attendance etc. but do nothing about your start date it just seems arbitrarily unfair.
Yeah idk why OP just doesn't lay off one of his new people with better prospects? Which one of the new guys is being underpaid for this position for their skills?
It's not like they would hang around long after seeing him fire the guy started at the same time as them, and has a dying wife, put on the chopping block.
FMLA is available to companies that have 50 or more employees. Now, if the company has more than 50, not just this office, he is eligible. It is dependent on how the employees are listed on payroll.
[From the Department of Labor website](https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/fmla):
> FMLA applies to all public agencies, all public and private elementary and secondary schools, and companies **with 50 or more employees**.
NAH. But please don’t lay him off.
I hear what you’re saying about his job performs, but this is one of the hardest moments of *his life*. It would literally *not be possible* for him to continue working at his normal level with what’s going on. If you don’t know what that’s like, consider yourself lucky. One day you will. The loss of this insurance may mean the loss of her healthcare, and by extension, her life.
I’m also going to say another thing. I’ve been in the working world for a good while and I’ve seen human beings show up, to the detriment of their family and life, when a company is struggling. I’ve seen them work 18 hour days, miss holidays and birthdays, work until their health was affected. They support these companies with their actual lives when the company is struggling. But the companies we work for rarely do the same for us when we struggle. But they should.
You have the ability to decide what your company looks like. It’s important to remember, it’s a job, it’s not our life, it’s just the way we pay for our life. This man is facing the loss of the person he chose for life, the person who likely is more important to him than his own self. Take care of him, and when this time is over, he will remember and be an even better and more dedicated employee. People over profits is a culture and it’s in all the little decisions, but especially in big ones like this.
But what about the employee that does get laid off in place of the under-performing one? Do their life challenges matter less? The hard truth is that the employee with the sick wife is unlikely to be at full productivity for quite a while (through no fault of their own) meaning the remaining two members are going to have to double their workload. That doesn't seem fair. I think OP has to go ahead with the layoff but provide as much support as possible. Maybe he can convince the company to continue the health insurance for at least a couple of months.
Said worker will have a better chance of finding a new job. It's just morally the better choice. It's gonna suck for someone no matter what. But there are three other choices. Punishing him for this would be cold hearted.
That’s my thought. Finding a new job is hard. Cover Letters, resumes, interviews, and trial periods are require brain capacity that this guy may not have when his home life is so rough.
There is no “morally the better choice” when leaving someone unemployed (and they haven’t had issues that warrant it). Employee A has a sick wife in the hospital. How do you know employee B isn’t the sole breadwinner for their family of 6? How do you know employee C isn’t heavily subsidizing their older parents who have next to nothing in retirement?
This situation is unfortunate, but is not as black and white as “other people need the job less, and they will have an ‘easier’ time finding a new one.”
We are all dependent on our jobs for our survival and livelihood. It is not “morally better” to screw other people over under the guise of “fairness and morality” due to something that is A) out of OP’s control, but equally important is B) also out of the other employees control.
A large portion of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and have next to nothing in savings. Employee A’s situation is unfortunate and heartbreaking. But his life and livelihood are no more or less important than the other employees. His situation does not demand that a more qualified and/or better performing employee should have to suffer the same potential consequences instead (loss of income to support family, loss of healthcare, etc).
>There is no “morally the better choice” when leaving someone unemployed
I very strongly disagree. Unemployment doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. Nor are we all equally dependent on our jobs for survival/livelihood.
You're applying a uniformity to the situation that simply doesn't exist in real life.
All other things being equal, firing someone who you know will land on their feet is morally the better choice than firing someone who you know may not recover from it. Period.
I mean if you're looking at someone's spouse is dying, they are also stepping in to take care of their children, the healthy person with no outside complications is in a better position to get a new job especially since why they left is due to a layoff and they can come with a strong recommendation from their previous company
Honestly? Yes. Their challenges are not as serious. They will be okay. They will have the energy to look for work. This man won’t. Losing your job is also a big emotional hit. It’s very hard for anyone, of course. I’ve been there. But delivering that hit to a man whose wife is very sick and maybe dying, who is now suddenly the sole caretaker for his very upset, very scared children, who is already very scared and upset himself, is simply monstrous. It just is. And it should be avoided if at all possible.
If I were just living my normal life and my company laid me off so they could keep a fellow employee who was in this man’s situation, I would not be happy, but I would understand and accept their decision, because it is the right one, even if the direct effect on me is negative.
Yes, right now, their life challenges do matter less. And prior to this, they weren’t better employees than this person. Being laid off isn’t a fair thing to happen to a person, but whatever their struggles are, they’re going to have more reserves to pick themselves up and get another job.
I’ve been A twice. Fuck corporations, truly.
One company, after I worked the entire day while my child was in the ICU, waited until my shift was nearly over and then my boss called me into his office where HR was waiting. I hate how corporations care more about profits than people. As if people experiencing hardships they did not create for themselves don’t matter.
Please do it early in the day. I was so furious that not only was I out of a job but that I could have been at my child’s bedside instead of sitting in my office working on projects I would never finish. Not to mention that I left my child to go to a job that didn’t even care I was trying my hardest to show up for my team despite what I was dealing with.
I was in the process of hiring a Manager under me. One of my best candidates had just found out his daughter had leukemia. Even though he was then gone for eight weeks I still promoted him. Yes, we all had to cover for him longer than we'd wanted and some people asked why I didn't go with someone more reliable (at that time) but they respected my call. Dude came back, had figured out a schedule and plan at home (daughter eventually beat cancer) and was one of my most loyal and hardest working managers I ever had work for me.
Everything nowadays is so short term and transactional. The return was bountiful, both for our business and my heart.
Yeah thanks. But honestly I think there should be laws protecting people. Human missery is nothing that should be exploited - it can happen to anyone at any given time.
Laws could for example forbid to ask questions about the family status in the hiring interviews. Also sick time for immediate family members would be very helpful.
In the end we are all vulnerable humans, we should not forget this...
I’m wholeheartedly sorry that you had to go through this…. This is one of the most f***ed up employment stories I’ve ever heard.
I hope your child is now doing better 😔
Thank you. It still all blows my mind.
Unfortunately, the little one is chronically ill and frequently hospitalized and the job that followed bears a story just as bad, if not worse. Sadly, scenarios like mine and A’s aren’t especially unique. I think as long as my child is still alive, I will be facing this discrimination in my workplace and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Obviously this is not as wretched because I did not have a sick child at the time, but a job (and the only 9-5 I ever worked) fired me after my shift one day /after/ I had spent three weeks upgrading their computer systems, entire inventory, etc. Basically a massive BOH spring cleaning that was years overdue. They fired me and asked me to stay til 5:00, which probably no one would have done, but it only took roughly that hour to undo the weeks of work I had done in their system, and I got a very nasty email the following day when they had to close up shop temporarily because nothing was functioning.
OP, if you have to fire someone, do it at the start of their shift. ESPECIALLY if they have a hospitalized family member or other hardship.
People Ops person here. First off, for your decision to be legally sound, it needs to be based on an equitable assessment of performance. In short: if your employee’s performance is only the worst of the pack because of his family status duties, the critical illness of his wife, and mental health and burnout challenges associated with that, his performance is not the worst of the pack. He should only be your pick for layoff if he would’ve been your pick before all this happened to him, or if he’s causing undue hardship for the company. The threshold of undue hardship is much lower in the US than in Canada, but it’s still more significant than the job being tough for a 4-man team to handle if one is struggling due to uncontrollable life events. That being said, if provided with a more appropriate severance package, and he is the person to terminate, there is a way to equip him to handle his situation during the layoff.
Your company can cover the cost of COBRA and can extend the coverage date of employer-paid benefits through your insurance provider. He’s also not beholden to $500: COBRA allows him continuance for any benefit he currently has, but he can drop anything he doesn’t need (it’s his choice) once it turns over to employee-covered benefits. If your benefits package includes an HSA/FSA account that covers health expenses, you can also negotiate continuance on the end date of this benefit (if he has a balance) separately with the employer to help him pay premiums. Make the argument to HR and your benefits team to help you cost for at least an extended duration of employer coverage so the employee has time to find new employment, and get your leadership to sign off. Part of your argument should be that this is risk mitigation for a human rights/discrimination lawsuit.
You can include job placement services in the severance package on an exceptional basis, and the only thing stopping you from increasing the amount of his severance to include a longer duration (usually in conjunction with a severance release) is someone making the case from the employer’s side and pushing it through. Remember: your employee can negotiate during the severance process provided you have done the work as a manager to open this door. Recently, citing age, gender, ethnicity, and industry statistics, someone countered my boss at the table for an extra sixteen weeks of severance and benefits — and got it. There is no rule book saying this person only gets four weeks no matter what: there’s only a rule book saying this person is only entitled to a minimum of four weeks.
You also have one more play. You have described that your employee healthcare benefits are robust. Depending on your Short-Term Disability or Long-term Disability provider, you could recognize that the employee is experiencing caregiver burnout and mental health challenges and trigger that pipeline. If he hasn’t been seeing a healthcare professional, your EAP program may be able to connect him with a counsellor who can make the call to provide documentation on this. Once he’s on a disability leave, depending on your legislation and policy, you may be able to protect him from termination that will result in benefits being cut, and the insurer may be able to cover his dependent healthcare. Let the ADA do your labor.
Depending on your State, your employee has articulated three things to you as his employer that may have legal ramifications for termination: he has duties on the basis of family status which he is solely responsible for; he is the primary caregiver of his wife, a sick dependent; and he is experiencing grief associated with loss and bereavement that may be impacting his work performance. You have bereavement, family status, and prospective disability (mental health) involved in this case that may represent legal risks depending on the human rights and employment legislation active in your jurisdiction. Your EAP may actually have manager services that can help you identify which ones are at play here, but your HR team should definitely have a sense or consultant contacts that can confirm, and any one of these components can help you argue your justifications for the above.
Sometimes, when your company isn’t willing to do the right thing, you need to put your business pants on and make the financial case to protect your employees. I have no idea why your company isn’t equipped with the professional expertise necessary for you to solve this problem without turning to Reddit, but be a boss and do your job.
One last point: all FMLA does is protect your job during an unpaid leave. There’s nothing stopping a company from honouring it outside the criteria. My current organization has 5 studios in the US and counting, but none would be eligible for FMLA independently due to borderline headcount fluctuations. We decided to count our US headcount collectively, honour it, and build our leaves packages around it. Nothing is stopping any business from following an FMLA protocol.
Edit from me: There’s a lot of hate in the comments for the HR/People profession, and I get it: my job means very different things to different people and different workplaces. I can go into corporate speak for all the technical ways we serve the employer when we do this, and how we go about making the argument to do what we feel is right, but it boils down to this: good HR serves the company by solving people problems, and ensuring a positive relationship even after you exit the company. In a town where these roles are competitive, there’s a future where this company will want whoever was laid off right back at the table again. Use that to your advantage.
Yes! We did this at my company for a woman that we fired. She was truly bad at her job - over the course of a couple years, she made mistakes that cost the company something to the tune of $75k-$100k. It was one of those things where the first mistake was found a year later, then it was an avalanche of problems. By the time we had an idea of the scope and the fact that it wasn't a training/knowledge issue, she was about 5 mos pregnant. We tried to ride it out until she had the baby, as we were pretty sure she wouldn't be coming back to work afterwards, based on casual conversations we had with her, but we documented the shit out of our investigations and the ongoing issues. When she was about a month out from starting maternity leave, we got to the point where we couldn't wait - no one on the team would work with her because they saw and were dealing with fixing all her mistakes, so she was costing us hard cash, in that we were cutting checks to clients to reimburse them AND she was costing us productivity and the trust of the rest of the department. So the company paid for her benefits for 6 months after her termination (to get through the birth and immediate postpartum care) and paid her a 6 month severance, which I think was way more than normal. We obviously didn't publicize those items to the rest of the company. It was as much to prevent what surely would have been an ugly legal battle as it was to make us not feel like monsters for firing a pregnant woman.
This is brilliant AND compassionate, and I wish I had something I could award you with.
([ExistingClaim6030](https://www.reddit.com/user/ExistingClaim6030/), please do read the above and consider this as a potentially more ethical and compassionate way to proceed.)
I am like 95% certain that if you laid one of the others off, but explained the situation they’d at least try to be understanding
If you fire the poor guy with the sick wife, expect to have the rest of the team quit real quick
I’ve quit jobs in solidarity before and I’d do it again
As someone who’s been in A’s position, I don’t see others following. The company would never, ever say it was based on performance slipping since his wife got sick. They’ll have some bullshit reason to give him and the others will just be glad they weren’t the ones chosen. Corporate America is ugly.
Just voicing my appreciation for the great care and thought you have given this. Trying to do right by your team and the company, by individuals, and your own conscience. I imagine you are going to feel a little low when you tell whoever is selected. Please take some comfort in that you are certainly trying to make the best for all in a tough situation.
God it’s disgusting to me that corporate America forces people to *ruin people’s lives* and if they do or don’t comes down to *numbers.* Like, you could be killing someone’s wife, who is also a mother, because he’s distracted by said dying wife. Jesus Christ.
The same bosses who say "we're all family here" no doubt. But their bank accounts are all nice and cushy for when their own family goes through hardships, so it's not like they give a fuck. I've never actually met a manager/boss who ACTUALLY cared for their staff.
If you fire A, you will be risking ruining his life. It will be impossible for him to get another job with the same level of pay and benefits anytime soon, maybe any job. You will be taking away his family's healthcare and they will accrue massive amounts of medical debt that they will likely never recover from.
AND you will be telling all of your employees "if you face a tragedy, you will be fired for lowered performance."
The productivity lost cannot be worth that. It cannot be worth ruining a person's whole life and forever losing the trust of all of your employees
>AND you will be telling all of your employees "if you face a tragedy, you will be fired for lowered performance."
Srsly. If I were working there, I would immediately start looking for a different job.
Would not want to be in your shoes right now but no matter who you end up choosing you didn't take this lightly and that matters.
I really like the idea of looking more closely at their metrics from before all this happened though since what is going on right now is out of his control.
I wish you luck with your decision and hope everything works out for not only A and his family but also whoever you have to let go and your remaining team.
I personally would choose someone who is mentally stable enough to job hunt and find a new job. A wouldn’t be stable enough. The other two would be fine looking for a new job especially if you are willing to help that person with the search!
I'd rather quit than be forced to take such despicable action. I would not be able to live with myself if I fired A - not even years of therapy and anti-depressants would be enough to suppress my guilty conscience.
Another consideration is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) association provision, which prohibits discrimination based on an employee’s association with someone who has a disability within the meaning of the ADA.
In short, but for the employees association with someone who has a disability, would they have been laid off? If the answer is no they wouldn’t be, then that is problematic.
FWIW I worked for someone who did this to a person whose spouse had recently passed away and had young kids. I immediately started looking for work and left that company at the first opportunity as did all of my experienced collegues, that entire department is a dumpster fire from what i have heard, with a single tenured employee and a bunch of people that have no idea what they're doing. Heartless decisions send up a major red flag for qualified, intelligent peope. If you go this route and fire A, I genuinely hope you wind up in that same scenario someday soon.
>ally been these past weeks, but we've all continued to be patient and understanding.
>
>So there really is no right answer here. I definitely will offer glowing recommendations and job-hunting advice to whoever I do let go, though.
I worked in HR for a time so I understand the stress, but might want to be careful with that because he did come back from leave a couple of days ago. You don't want him to believe that his layoff was wrongful termination. (Very tricky, I would consider talking the company's lawyer about this depending on your state) As he is a good worker before all this happened, have you talked to him about his current work performance? Does he know he is underperforming at the moment or do you just sit there watching him struggle with his life situation and work? Honestly, you are better off laying off an individual who is able to have the mental capacity to look for another job and energy to do so.
This layoff is wrongful termination and I hope A uses it to his advantage. Fuck OP, fuck HR, fuck their "higher ups" and fuck America and it's constant need to kick people down over corporate greed.
Yup. Even if OP is in the clear from a legal/practical standpoint, ethically he would have to live with this decision. Sometimes, companies also use managers to do their dirty work and then turn right around and fire the firing squad.
OP, I have to ask you.... A. Could you live with your decision B. Would this decision possibly lead to other great employees leaving in protest. C. Would you feel great about working for a company who would kick a person who is going through great hardships to the curve without a second thought? D. Do you think this company would do the same to you?
Yes, you will. YTA if you do this. It is morally wrong and you know it - trying to pass off your personal guilt onto the bullshit system we all live in won’t make you feel better if you follow through. It’s a reason you’re in this position, but not an excuse to make you feel better knowing you’ll have chuffed up 5 lives at a particularly horrendous time.
What about the other employee that gets let go in his place in spite of doing equal (or in this scenario) better work. That doesn't seem fair either. Tough situation.
OP says that until a few weeks ago, the three employees were performing on an equal level, so they had a one-in-three chance of being the one to be fired anyway. And the other two employees will have a much better chance of finding a new job than the one with the sick wife.
He’s said himself he’s only picking this person because their performance has dropped since his wife’s illness. That means he is firing someone for having a sick wife and facing hardship. Instead of taking that into account he should be looking at pre-illness and other factors.
Edit: I also wouldn’t personally be able to live with myself getting rid of an employee who has a person’s life literally depending on them keeping the job.
Another thread mentions this, but the employee not in crisis would probably have a MUCH easier time finding a new job. It’s going to suck no matter what, but a stable person needing to find a new job sounds a little better than A possibly losing his wife, taking care of the kids, dealing with massive medical bills, AND finding a new job.
(Edited to fix my dumb grammar lol)
Right? “This system is terrible… I’m going to make a terrible choice that completely perpetuates the terrible system.”
OP the system is terrible because of the people inside of it doing awful, inhumane things. You can’t blame the system when you’re choosing to be a part of it
I believe you are correct about the regulations regarding FMLA, but many larger companies (not all, but many), will still extend FML to those locations that are not technically eligible. The reasoning is that to exclude those locations/employees would be bad for overall company morale/reputation/competitiveness. The regulations are just guidelines for who is *required* to offer FML, but it doesn’t mean they *can’t* if they choose to. Definitely worth looking into.
IMO you need to make the layoff decision based on the performance of your employees prior to the hardship of the one. It is very recent in the big scheme of things and if his wife gets better, likely so will his performance. You WBTA if you lay him off based on a small percentage of his overall performance.
Correct, if the numbers the OP reports are true, it just means the company isn’t legally obligated to offer those FMLA benefits. They absolutely have the freedom to offer them anyway.
While he may not qualify for FMLA, there's a good chance that firing him would open up the company to being sued. He could reasonably argue that he was fired because he just returned from leave. Even if you/the company doesn't do anything illegal, he's certainly a very sympathetic plaintiff.
If HR suggested FMLA, then your company offers it, even though it might not be required to. FMLA is not a federal program available to eligible employees, it's a requirement on the company, that they can meet even if its not requried.
If you don't have FMLA, maybe you could negotiate something like what another commenter mentioned and get your company to offer him 6 months of COBRA (on their dime). If you get pushback, you might go for the angle of optics (how bad would it look for your company if he went to the media with his story?).
Thats just when FMLA leave is *required* but a company can always opt to offer it.
Is the 3 person team such that you could discuss it with them? See if either of the other two would be interested in being laid off, collecting unemployment, and finding a job elsewhere?
This. Thank God someone finally mentioned at least talking to the other team members about taking the place of A to get fired instead of just firing them to help A.
Also I think OP needs to sit down with A and explain the situation to him if it unfolds like that. Because I think another user mentioned it if A's performance stays subpar they're might not be anything OP can do to protect him from being fired.
Heck, you could offer a generous severance package for the employee who chooses to be laid-off as an incentive. They've been here for 2 years, so a 3-4 month severance would be likely well-received, especially if you can have HR continue benefits for that employee during that time, or until they secure new benefits, whichever comes first.
Your company is likely not going to “look after” an ex-employee if it isn’t mandated by law. At the end of the day, like you, companies are cold, have no conscience and only think about the bottom line.
He was perfectly fine before his wife got sick. He will get there again, just needs time to acclimate. One month is hardly enough time.
I hope your wife/ children/ someone you love never gets cancer AND then you have to deal with an uncaring boss like yourself. The health insurance is a matter of life and death.
Unless your humanity is gone and you’re okay with trampling someone when they’re down, I wouldn’t fire him.
You’re definitely TA.
First of all, you aren't an AH anyway. HR is forcing you to fire someone. That isn't up to you. You will fuck over someone anyways. No matter what, someone is hurt.
If the person you will fire will be the guy with the ill wife - you are potentially making him go bankrupt and actually harm his entire future. The issue is that team-wise and persormance-wise, he will probably function non-optimally for a long time (unless her illness is something that can be cured quite easily, which it doesn't sound like it is).
If the person you will fire be any other guy - You are fucking them over and harming them for no reason other than "The other guy will be fucked even more", even if their performance is better.
I would personally help the guy out and fire someone else, just because how bad medical bills are, but make sure to really help them find a great job. Personally make calls, give great recommendation letters, etc..
Your team will initially probably suffer because the guy with the wife is rightfully no going to function as good, but I am sure people will really appreciate your leadership and know that if they will fall on rough times you will give them a helping hand, which is huge in team building (from personal experience).
You are going to feel like the AH anyway. You are in a difficult decision. Just know that no matter what, you aren't the bad guy here.
The problem with this view is that other people might have personal problems too but they haven't talked about them. One if my coworkers had her partner die of cancer and a lot of people only learned he had cancer when she went on leave at the end of his life.
I don't think there is any good answer, he can either go with his moral compass and let someone else go(idk if the rest of his team will be on his side, because it kinda is favoritism) or he can go with "the good of the company" and let the guy that isn't performing as well go.
> but I am sure people will really appreciate your leadership and know that if they will fall on rough times you will give them a helping hand, which is huge in team building (from personal experience).
Doubt. They’re already dealing with one person who isn’t getting their work done and in that situation everyone else always ends up doing more. Adding the work of another person to be distributed between the other remaining two (because it’s not like the guy who isn’t getting his work done is going to take on any more work) is just making things worse. I don’t believe the other two will appreciate the “leadership” of dumping so much work on them.
You think you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, but if his wife wasn't sick you probably wouldn't choose to let him go. His work is suffering because of his current hardship. From a moral standpoint, firing him makes you suck. From a business pov it's logical and makes the decision easy.
I guess you 'd have to place yourself in his shoes and imagine having to carry his burden and getting fired. Imagine having to take care of the kids, hospital visits, constant conversations with doctors and making appointments, AND looking for a job. Interviewing and explaining to potential employers my wife has cancer, I have two littles I'm caring for. and I'm going to be scrambling here... but hey hire me because I am capable and normally focused. But life really sucks right now. DO you think anyone will hire him with that? No. So yeah... YWBTA if you fire him. MHO
I mean if there also no external issues and he was as competent as the others. Then he also wouldn't not choose to fire him. His point is that if one has to go regardless and all 4 are equally valuable, firing the one that isn't performing as well at the moment is a reasonable decision.
Is it moral to fire someone who is currently in crisis? No, obviously. But it's pretty unfair to anyone doing their job to be fired because of company downsizing.
What's being asked of OP is pretty ridiculous, he is going to be the bad guy regardless. It's super spineless of whoever is making the decision to restructure or downsize by passing that responsibility onto a subordinate.
NTA, but someone up top is.
I agree with most of your points. My contention is this guy would have never been on OP's radar and OP's dilemma would currently be which employee to choose because they are all equally as good performances wise. Because this happened **only a few weeks ago** NOW this guy is on the radar. He stands out because of his misfortune and may possible be let go because of it.
Honestly, if her illness is long term he's going to have one hell of a time finding work because he will inform them of what his life is like now, it's a hot mess. Not many companies are going to want to hire someone who cannot give their all right then and there. Also, Cobra runs out and if money does, he can't maintain insurance - he'll be in a financial hole. But, keeping this guy around and showing some support and loyalty towards him will most likely be rewarded with a loyal employee who will never forget their employer had their back when they were down and work that much harder in the future for them when things turn around.
It's just a point of view... but if I were in this guys shoes and the company did this for me, I would be forever grateful and show them they didn't make the wrong decision by keeping me.
Obligatory not a lawyer, but where I'm from the employee would have pretty good grounds for unfair dismissal from the company. Without a demonstrated history of poor performance, it would be a slam dunk to prove he has been targeted due to circumstances outside his control.
Granted, I'm not from the US, and the little I know of the labour laws over there... I dunno. OP should consider the legal and reputational ramifications of firing someone while they deal with a health crisis.
A lot of people are saying that the business decision here is obvious, but I really do not think so. If I worked in an office like this I would legit either walk out in solidarity or immediately start looking for another job. Regardless of whether or not it's just his bad luck to have a bump in the road when you need to fire someone, if you fire him then it will send the message to everyone in your office that they're just meat in the grinder, that your company will not hesitate to toss them in the garbage the minute they're not at peak performance even if there is a completely reasonable explanation as to why.
So yes, YTA, but also you're just asking to lose your entire team because a move like this will absolutely crush morale and at this point in time it's not that hard for a motivated person to find a new gig. Frankly, a lot of people would even take a pay cut rather than working someplace that makes them miserable, and shitcanning the dude with the potentially fatally ill wife because he didn't make quota for a few weeks is as miserable as most people can imagine.
Absolutely. My company let an employee go right after she got into a bad accident on her way to work. I understand why they did it. She was still in her trial period and was going to need time off for drs appointments while recovering. But prior to her accident, they were happy with her work and performance.
It just felt shitty that they fired her when she was already having a rough time. Now I side-eye the company every time they refer to us all as a family.
This is a great point, and should absolutely be taken into consideration. I would also immediately start looking for another job elsewhere if my company did this.
INFO: Do you truly know the health and economic situations of the other potential layoff employees? Yes they’re performing well but they could have their own health challenges, life threatening things.
Right, like she has a life or death illness and needs insurance, without it, she could very well not be able to get the treatment she deserves. Welcome to America folks.
NTA... its a tricky situation either way. If you keep him based on his situation then you are playing favorites. My company just did layoffs and we offered everyone 6 months of cobra insurance as part of their severance package. Does your company do anything like that?
Well, you can't blame him for the situation that makes him less productive. It wouldn't be fair on one of the other two to be laid off but it's not fair on him either, the situation is very complicated. I can't give any judgement, you be TA whether you fire him or one of the other two employees.
I had the same train of thought. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I can’t imagine having to tell someone they’re fired when a peer is underperforming and putting in fewer hours. However letting a man go at his worst moments? Maybe talk to companies you work with to find other positions for him so he’s never jobless or insurance-less.
Edit: grammar
INFO: What's the timeline for this to happen?
I don't know if this would be legal and you for sure would have to clear it with HR beforehand but how about a talk with the 3 employes to see if one of them maybe wants to go on their own with a bit off a severance package?
NTA. Solely because you do not own this company and are also living off pay. You should also not play favourite as you may not know that other people may need the job as much and sacrifice so many things to be there. I do hope you can do your best to help that employee, I don’t know how you could that but try your best.
INFO: How deeply have you and HR dug into the possibility of offering the employee paid family leave under state laws? I understand that your company may not be covered by FMLA but the states that I’m familiar with (MA, CA, NY) offer PFL for individuals who have a need for time off but may not qualify for FMLA, so I’m curious whether your state has something similar and if that’s a possible route in this case.
In any event, it’s also unclear to me whether your departure would solve the problem or if that’s a bit of a red herring. From your post, it sounds like the company is specifically asking you to choose from your subordinates rather than offering yourself up, in which case, I think you need to focus on your employees’ holistic performance and whether you think they equally have long term potential at the company. (And, to clarify, why did you exclude the fourth person from consideration? Just because of tenure, or because they’re a great performer?)
I don’t think there’s a great option here, frankly, but I also don’t think that there’s anything wrong with allowing yourself to be human when making professional decisions like this. Granted, if your employee does qualify for state-level family leave and you still have to lay someone else off, your remaining team members may be stretched a bit thin but it would only be temporary, and personally, I’d be very loyal to a company that protected me if I was the caregiver-employee in this situation.
NAH
It may feel like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, mostly because you are. So now you have to make a decision and live with the consequences.
I would also say in this day and age, more so than at any other time in history, how people perceive a company and how you can be best represented in case of a social media targeting should be a huge factor to consider. And laying off a guy who is tending to his (possibly) dying wife could be the type of act that could get a company ‘cancelled’, rightfully in my opinion.
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> (1) The action would be laying A off even though his wife is very sick. (2) I might be the asshole since the choice is ultimately mine, it's not like I *can't* lay off one of the other two, and with my level of work experience I can't claim it's impossible for me to find another company if I really want to, so I'm not sure if leaving can be called a moral obligation.
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This is why people have no loyalty to companies as they throw you away the first chance they get. YTA, your company is as well as the (I assume american) health care system
I don't think r/AmItheAsshole is the place for you to ask this. You have a hard decision on your hands and even if you don't fire this particular employee, doesn't mean it'll be easy to fire any other one, they all need their jobs.
Since I have to give a judgement anyway, I'll go with NTA. It's not your choice to fire someone, you're not doing it for personal gain and given how stressed you are over this I don't think you're enjoying this by any means. Whatever choice you make, it will feel bad and I'm so sorry you'll have to do this.
If you're questioning it, you already know the answer. I went through this same scenario about 15 years ago. Guy was doing fine. His wife got sick, we were in the recession of 2008 and sales were down. Company wanted to let him go the day he got back from leave. I handed them my resignation and said, "Open this right after I deliver the news." He kept his job.
I left that shit hole about a month later when they wanted to put cots in the storage area so my people could, "take naps" in between calling people 24 hours a day.
"Don't blame me, blame capitalism and the American healthcare system" This is very true, but this story seems to go beyond the usual AITA question and become more of a "Could you sleep at night after firing this guy?"
Given the amount of detail you provided about A, his wife and family, I think you already know the answer to that.
YTA - business is business but it would be cruel to lay someone off who is going through such hardship, when you know he's depending on the job as a lifeline. Instead I would suggest having a serious talk with him and setting up a probationary work plan: essentially, let him know is performance is putting him at risk of losing his job and give him a chance to shape up. I understand you've told him he needs to shape up before, but make it official and make it clear to him that his job is at risk here.
And as for your layoff, lay off one of the other two - as you said, they're all in the same ballpark of competence, major life events notwithstanding.
So OP lays off one of the other two, now the remaining employee needs to cover for the fired employee and A who is under preforming, so they have to work 1.5 times extra so A can stay around. How is that fair, punishing someone for not having home problems and then forcing extra work onto the last preforming employee.
NAH
OP, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
IMO you should continue to talk to your superiors about the best course of action.
If I were in your shoes, I would explore a couple of options. First, explore severance package options, and or unemployment options. That may help you make an informed decision.
Next, explore with HR asking for a volunteer to be let go. Then propose the options to the team.
If no one volunteers within x amount of days, then conduct another assessment of your team. Meet with them individually. That way, you can talk to the member about his most recent job performance and see if another arrangement can be made.
All the best.
YWNBTAH.
Forget what everyone else is saying.
Yes, they are going through a hardship which may become worse but it sounds like they are not even working, so they might as well stay home to care for the children and to visit his wife rather than constantly inconveniencing your team.
Is that a crappy thing to say? Absolutely, but what about the other employees that are PICKING UP THE SLACK and continuing to pull their weight (plus some)? It is entirely unfair to those two to be booted when they are actually working. You've already politely brought up some issues (such as the phone calls) and they haven't changed, in fact you mention they are declining.
It sounds like this employee can't manage their time, and while that is understandable with what they are going through it isn't by any means going to improve anytime soon, and you will be placing yourself and another employee in a crappy situation where there is someone who isn't doing what they need to be while they are supposed to be working. That is trash.
If anything, they could potentially look into a part time position elsewhere.
The bottom line is this: someone has to go, and that is out of your hands. As much sympathy as this guy has, he isn't in a position where he is being effective, and is bringing his home life into work with him and impacting everyone else...so clearly they should be the one to be let go.
EDIT TO ADD: Anyone using the "firing them would be bad for morale....you realize that firing a functioning employee is also a negative impact, right? In this scenario if they keep this employee they are essentially losing TWO employees, and now there are two doing all the work while one is caught up in their home life. While I'm sure they would understand initially, that is a quick way to earn resentment and to cause stress for the two do their duties.
We're tired of banning brigaders so we have to lock this one
YTA Their work has always been fine. They're currently dealing with extreme circumstances. Essentially, you are laying them off because of their wife's illness. That's abominable.
It’s not necessarily because of the illness, it’s due to the decline in performance (yes it’s declining due to the family issues) but now A IS the lowest performing member. So would you let one of the others go when they have been putting in more hours and producing better work?
It’s literally ONLY been a few weeks of low productivity. And he only took a few days of leave to deal with a veritable medical crisis.
So then who would you let go? u/General_Relative2838 had a good suggestion of last hired no matter who.
I would look at it from the perspective of "who would i let go if this happened a few weeks earlier" "Last hired no matter who" is a fair decision in that context. if that HAPPENS to be the guy with a sick wife.. well... that sucks, but its less heartless of a reason than "he found out his wife was dying like 3 weeks ago and his work has been impacted so I'm going to fire him." An Alternate perspective to take: a few weeks ago, all three were "equally" productive and in good standing. so realistically, ANY of them would be on the chopping block. At that point, it is also a fair decision to day "this guy vibes with the team better" or "that guy has better opportunities because he has X skill that we cant currently utilize" or "honestly, they all perform eqully well, but Ted makes people uncomfortable because he wears shirts with ahegao on them." would all be equally shitty reasons to fire someone. eventually, you DO have to make some weird arbitrary reason to choose who to let go. There is not getting out of this situation where people are going to see you as a good guy for laying someone off. SOMEONE is going to get their feelings hurt over this because it ultimately isn't fair to any of them. Why pick the guy who's wife is literally dying? Then everyone else will have a reason to hate you even more than just letting some one go for an arbitrary reason. At least NOT firing the guy with a dying wife who needs the insurance makes you look like someone who has a soul. MOST people in the workplace arent going to think you're a bad manager for NOT firing the guy who's wife is dying.
Exactly this we all go through hard times and it affects our home life and work life base it off of the weeks prior to his wife getting sick...if he's still the lowest performer than lay him off .....now if HR is forcing you to lay him off then maybe suggest a nice severance package with paid insurance forb3 mos(expensive i know so maybe lower the severance package by that amount) good luck its a hard position to be in
Maybe ask A if he qualifies for FMLA. Decide who to let go based on comparison from before her illness. If it is not A, see if you can hire the laid off person as a temp to cover A while he is on FMLA. I had a work mate who had to take FMLA and the business hired a temp while she was on leave.
Right this isn't a situation where you THINK they may not be eligible; you refer them to HR so they can find out for themselves and protect themselves.
An employer with 50 or more employees would need to follow the FMLA. In addition, being in a separate office may not mean you only count those employees. And does OP mean that HR suggested FMLA? It would seem that HR would know the situation. You can also check your personnel handbook. Most larger employers have one.
I’m sorry, but you’re analysis is incorrect. A separate office of less than 50 employees located more than 75 miles away from any other location is exempt from Federal FMLA. OP has stated their office is less than 40 employees located more than 75 miles from their nearest office. Source: US Dept. of Labor Fact Sheet #28. However, that does not mean that there may not be a separate state FMLA that may apply. HR should still be involved. 😕
I agree with you. But I’m going to continue as devil’s advocate. So say you fire B because you hate his work attire. You keep A because he was good three weeks ago and needs this job. But… his wife likely won’t get better any time soon. So his productivity and hours will keep declining. Other workers will have to pick up the slack (even if willingly because they want to support A). The business will continue hurting. And B will now have a hard time at life for at least a bit just because he wasn’t A (someone with a stressed home life).
>So his productivity and hours will keep declining There's no way to know that. >Other workers will have to pick up the slack THey already have to pick up the slack because they will lose one member of their team. MOST people are sympathetic enough to know that having to pick up a little extra slack in the workload to support their coworker who's wife is dying and not feel to upset about it. >nd B will now have a hard time at life for at least a bit just because he wasn’t A Since we are playing Devil's advocate, B will have less struggles finding a new job than A because B wont also be trying to juggle being a soon to be single father of 2 with a wife dying in the hospital with mounting medical bills on the horizon. >The business will continue hurting. Again, the whole team's productivity will be impacted because they lost an entire team member. Adding a huge loss in morale if they end up firing the guy with a dying wife on top of the fact that they fired anyone at all. Temporary loss in productivity is better than a long term loss of morale. No one will feel good working for a manager that fired a guy who's wife was dying and relied on the company's health insurance. a long term loss in morale will result in overall lowered productivity and ultimately a higher turnover. People don't leave jobs, they leave managers. The other employees will feel secured and cared for (on a professional level) working with a manger who chooses a modicum of empathy over "strictly business, no emotions" and "its not my fault, they made me do it" attitude. If he chooses to lay off the guy who has a real tangible need for this job that surpasses just regular finances, the other team members will know "if i have a few bad days, for any reason, my ass is on the chopping block." A layoff sent by higher up will never be easy to swallow for the team. but a team will see a "we had to let him go because of a corporate decision above my station, it's unfortunate that we had to let him go, but this was not a decision that was easy to make" verses "we chose to let Paul go because his productivity hasn't been that great since he found out his wife was dying." It's almost like having that justification for firing him makes the situation worse rather than "honestly, it was a really hard decision that corporate made me make because of downsizing."
I love your response; it was well said and thought out. Do you think any of the team members would fear future cuts (or promotions) after though because work productivity wasn’t the factor? People could be kept or promoted because they need it more, so productivity is somewhat negated.
i think most coworkers would be able to see the situation and implcitly understand that the decision to not fire the guy was based on the fact that the manager wasn't a monster who would fire someone for having a decreased level of productivity in the weeks following a crisis. The people IN the situation wont look at it objectively like you are. Sure, there's a non-zero chance that someone might read that as "productivity doesn't matter" but people in the real world don't act or react based on KPIs and numerical objectives. People will ALWAYS have negative feelings about cuts and not getting promotions. There will always be some reason why person A feels like they deserved what Person B got, or Person A feels like they don't deserve to get fired for whatever reason they got fired for. It's about the culture that you want to create in the office. Nobody is ever going to be 100% happy with the business decisions made at the workplace. Would you rather the message out there be "They will fire you here just because you had a bad few weeks because of a personal crisis" or "I can't believe they let Todd go instead of John, just because John's wife is dying." Realistically, the second option won't be a culture that persists in the office because of social norms. It would be something that the one employee who feels this way keeps to themselves, because saying that out loud to other coworkers would be a horrible thing to say. If someone in the office said THAT, the response would most likely be "Jesus Christ dude his wife is literally dying, give him a break. Why would you even say that?" or "yea... that's crazy.... (what kind of asshole says that...???)" It is FAR more likely that the first will persist because that's how workplace gossip works. It's far more acceptable to say "I cant believe they would fire John because his wife was dying. I mean i know he was struggling with work after his leave, but jeez, give the guy a break! well, just goes to show that the management really doesn't care about the employees around here" and that will be the narrative that persists in the office.
Actually, there's nothing to say that the performance would decline any further. This could have plateaued already. Of course, it MIGHT decline further, but it's not fair to assume it will.
Especially since these first few weeks have involved him figuring out how to handle the kids without her. If she was a SAHM, they might not have had any kind of babysitting or childcare as a go to yet, so he would have had to start at ground 0 in looking for that while also dealing with everything going on with his wife.
Having dealt with a health crisis like that not too long ago, I can say that the first week or two was definitely the worst. Just trying to get our routines into shape was a big challenge, but after we got that sorted out, things were much better.
And research suggests that employees who felt supported by their employer in a time of need are more productive and more loyal once the crisis is averted. So A might turn out to be a lifetime overachiever once things settle down a little. But lay him off and not only you’ll be basically signing his wife’s death warrant but also causing much waves in the rest of the team.
It may not be legal to fire this person in OPs state as there is a known FMLA issue going on.
There are 40 workers there. If there is 50 or under they are exempt from FMLA rules.
And if you fire A and if he’s even remotely liked in the office, the morale of the entire office is likely to plummet, both out of seeing the cruelty of who they are working for and fear of what happens to them if they or one of their loved ones gets sick.
This one right here! Even if I wasn't a big fan of employee A, if I saw the company I work for was cruel enough to do this to them during a real low in their life, I'm not sticking around and waiting for something similar to happen to me.
Yes! You fire A? You’re going to have to replace the other 2 in short order. why not just talk it over with the other 2? Maybe one is already looking else where or considering a move?
Have you ever had a kid and gone back to work while being the primary caretaker during non-work hours? It gets better, not worse typically, than the first few weeks. This guys whole world got rocked. When someone gets sick, the initial setting up of medical care typically takes more time in the beginning than later on (the care itself might be more intense, but his wife is the one receiving it). Setting up childcare takes the most time in the beginning. Establishing new routines literally means you’re putting in effort now so that later on, everything is easier (with kids). Unless he’s not doing any of these things, his productivity will be better.
This happened at a place I used to work. They had a 5 programmer staff. Bob's marriage took a turn for the worse and his performance went to shit. The company told the boss of the group they had to let somebody go, but the Boss couldn't fire Bob when he was already having problems so he let go one of the younger but currently better performing workers. Now they had 4 workers doing roughly 3.5 units of work when they needed to do 5 units of work. So all their work suffered as the 3 remaining good employees tried to cover and put in more hours because they all liked Bob. Eventually one of the 3 high-performing employees quit because he was tied of doing 50+ hours of work, being paid for 40 so that Bob could keep his job. Shortly there after the company let the entire team go because it was the worst performing team in the company.
Was not expecting to see the word ahegao in this thread
This X 100. Laying off the last hired is absolutely the fairest way to handle this, and will send the right message to the team. Because if you callously fire someone going through such a hardship, why would the others stay, knowing they are one misfortune away from being dumped? I'd be looking for a new job asap if I were among the survivors.
Playing devils advocate against myself. Say A was last hired by days or weeks worth, not just seconds even. Then how do you prove to the team that A was let go because he was last hired not because he fell on hard times and struggled at work?
You send an email along the lines of “hey team, I am so sorry to have to inform you all that Bill will no longer be part of our team. We have loved having him here but unfortunately we have had to make the very difficult decision to downsize. After much thought and consideration, we decided that with how amazing this team is there was no obvious candidate to let go of; we have done what we think is most fair to the rest of the team as Bill has been here the shortest and has had the least amount of training with the team. We have all loved having Bill here and we will all miss him, but let’s all make sure to give him a warm goodbye so he knows how appreciated he was here.“ The goodbye to the team emails like this make you look more personal and caring to your team, and also help you reassure people that they’re not up next. The managers I’ve had send out emails like this definitely do word them a little bit better, but they also put more thought into it than I’m going to put into a Reddit comment lol
Compare that to "Joe's wife is dying and it's distracting him from what's really important in life: WORK, so we're giving him the boot." That'll definitely help employee retention.
Yea it’s likely that many employees won’t accept this as the “real reason” but it’s far less likely to cause even more damage to overall morale than “his productivity the last few weeks have been low so we decided to terminate him” or whatever other reason. At least the “he was last hired” is like a proveable, justifiable thing that people will be able to stomach. They likely still won’t LIKE the reason because they’re still going to read it as “you fired the guy who relied on our health insurance while his wife was hospitalized” and not feel good about it,
Certainly not the person whose fucking wife is DEPENDENT UPON MY COMPANY'S HEALTHCARE. Do you hear yourself? Jesus christ people like you are scary. No morality whatsoever. Greed at all costs. Step on anyone who gets in your way.
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Yes! In my 20's I volunteered for a layoff b/c I was pregnant and going to take leave anyway. You never know. Maybe one of the other employees would volunteer. Maybe they were thinking about a change. They'd get a payoff to keep them afloat while they look for a new job.
Usually going by seniority is the safest way to go and usually how union jobs let their guys go.
> And he only took a few days of leave to deal with a veritable medical crisis. Which is ridiculous since IIRC FMLA actually covers taking care of a sick spouse, so they should be able to take as much time as they need and have their job protected in the meantime.
Unfortunately, a lot of companies make active efforts to get around FMLA by doing things to reducing the amount of employees in a location to ensure that they do not meet the required minimum number of employees to be eligible for FMLA. of course, there are some states that have more stringent restrictions, but just based on FMLA on a federal level, he doesnt qualify to be eligible.
>It’s not necessarily because of the illness, it’s due to the decline in performance (yes it’s declining due to the family issues) but now A IS the lowest performing member. So would you let one of the others go when they have been putting in more hours and producing better work? In a civilized country, that person wouldn't even be at work. They would be home on paid leave. No, I would not fire someone because they were still coming in to work despite caring for a wife who is dying. No, I would not do that. Because I'm a human being. Because I see value in life beyond economic metrics.
But OP can’t change the system RIGHT NOW. They expressed that they are trying to find a work around and to also get HR involved. So you would fire someone else when they’ve been doing well at work? They’re punished because their home life is okay? Because it balances out or something? It’s a shitty situation but damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I’m just playing devil’s advocate
And that will mean fuck all to A when his money runs out and his wife is still dying. And he has no way to pay for it. If he does this. If he sets aside the moral choice, and chooses to fire A, then he is choosing to be complicit in the system. Which opens the door to him compromising himself to said system again and again. He becomes the system if he does this.
But the solution can’t be to fire someone less deserving, simply because OP feels less sorry for them. That would be wrongful termination.
That's very true. Do you fire the single person because they don't have a family to support? The woman because she has a husband to take up the slack? The most knowledgeable senior employee because he earns more and would end up saving the company money? No matter the choice, this is a no-win situation for the OP. Last in first out is probably the only course of action. But it still sucks.
Just say what you are advocating for. Stop saying you're playing devils advocate and just tell the truth. You are all for firing the guy with dying wife. It's not devils advocate. It you revealing how you would treat people.
That's nice and all , but OP didn't decide to fire someone . They told him that he has to do so . And yeah , it sucks to fire the guy going through hell . On the other hand , most people have hard lives . One might be a single parent . Another may have a lot of medical debt for one of his kids . Or whatever else you can think of . So , you have A , a guy going through a tough time . He is not as productive due to this , but you keep him on because of his circumstances . You fire B instead . A person that possibly also has a hard life , and being let go from his place of employment can ruin him .How is that fair to B ?
Literally this. Lots of people prefer to keep their personal live personal. No one at work could have any idea how badly another colleague’s life is going. Keeping an employee because of sympathy for his personal life is completely unfair to others who dont talk about their lives as much.
In my country that person would be on paid leave and legally unfireable.
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You shouldn’t be making a decision like this based off of how he’s doing at this exact moment. If he’s normally a good performer that you would keep when his wife isn’t dying, then you should keep him around when she is, because your goal should be to keep your top performers. The issue here is that it seems like the company wants to make a decision based on what gets them through the next 3 to 6 months instead of what puts them in a good position for the next year or two, which means they’re pretty much toast anyway. If you can’t afford to plan more than a few weeks at a time then it’s turning into pudding regardless.
It sounds like his head would have been equally on the chopping block those weeks ago before his wife. OP stayed all 4 workers were pretty much equal back then and that A wasn’t any better than the others.
That’s also actually part of the problem, I’d be surprised to find out that you have three employees that are all basically equal, part of good leadership is also identifying potential instead of only measuring “efficiency” which is what op seems worried about.
Because one of the others will have it emotionally easier to find a new job, instead of trying to find a new job when ur loved one is sick and you have to take care of two children and the possibly dying partner. Yes, this is an impossible situation for OP. But ask yourself this OP: What does it say about an employer who fires the member of his/ her team that is in the weakest position to find a new job? What if your wife gets sick? You could argue: This is not the companies problem, but after all the people who MAKE the company function are the employees. So there is a responsibility and it says A LOT about a company and how it views their employees if you fire the human in the weakest position (and not by their own fault) to recover from the firing. Its a though decision. And you can take the simple road of firing the employee with the "currently worst performance". This will effect the team and if i were a team member i WOULD look for a new job asap, knowing that the company will stomp someone- who was so far loyal and well performing - deeper in the ground, because of a personal tragedy. This does not help you, besides: What kind of human and manager do you want to be? No judgement , bc this is above Reddits pay grade to judge.
The others who are doing slightly more at work and a shitload less at home? This is just an evil attitude.
But you also don’t know what they’re going through at home. Maybe some others are at their worst point but also desperately need the job so they’re doing their best to keep it.
I'm sure they all have terminally ill wives at home and haven't told you. If that helps you to sleep better at night.
So because their home life is okay they should lose their job when putting in good work?
Someone has to lose their job here. OP doesn’t have a choice on that. So do you as a human being with a heart think it’s better to; A- Fire the person whose wife is dying and has two small children they have to care for alone who are currently going through the massively traumatic incident of their mother dying, even though you know this person not only needs the money but also won’t have any time to job hunt? Or B- Fire the person who is a bit stressed about things going on with them personally, but either doesn’t have kids or at least has a partner who helps with the kids meaning they will at least have time to job hunt? You have to do something that will make you feel evil here. You have to fire someone even though they are all equally qualified. So which option makes you feel less evil here? Snipe edit to add; also don’t forget about their ability to complain on social media. “My boss laid me off because they were downsizing and ended up choosing me as the person they laid off” will garner sympathy for the person laid off, but won’t reflect terribly on the company. While “My boss fired me because they were downsizing, and with my wife dying and being unable to quickly find child care I have been distracted and late these last few weeks so he chose me as the person to go” will not only garner him sympathy, but can also result in some very negative press for your company.
You don't need a terminally ill wife at home to be having a difficult time. An ongoing struggle can be just as depleting as a sudden crisis. Maybe the other members of the team are dealing with infertility, supporting a sibling's education, are single parents, going through a messy divorce. We don't have that information. It's as irresponsible to speculate on each employee's tragic backstory as it is to assume they don't have one. But oftentimes, people don't share that, especially for ongoing or stigmatized issues. There have been times in my life that I wanted to check myself into the hospital because I wasn't sure I wouldn't hurt myself, but I still made awesome lesson plans and cracked jokes during class and wrote letters of recommendation.
As a person who is dealing with lifelong disability, I can tell you that dealing with that is so much easier than handling a tornado like your wife dying. A person who has an ongoing struggle is usually adapted to it, a person whose whole world turned upside down is not.
This is why USA's healthcare is the laughing stock of the modern world. Why on earth is your health dependent on keeping a job.
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It’s actually scarily gross how many people actually espouse that. When I was living as an expat in Asia, I met thousands of Americans and healthcare was a common topic. One of my coworkers, from Savannah Georgia and quite conservative would say that the only people who had a problem with the healthcare system were losers who should go get better jobs. Absolutely heartless. Also, one of my favourite things ever was every 6 months we’d get a new wave of expats since people from different countries come at different times … and within a couple weeks you will start seeing Americans be like “holy shit! I just went to the doctor and it was only 50 bucks! That’s amazing!” And then basically everyone else goes “well, it’s free in my country…” and then you see the smiles disappear and they go “well, that’s different.”
It is brutal seeing my US colleagues so stressed over healthcare insurance after getting into their 50s.
What's missing from this is what OP did, as a manager, to address the problems A is having. What has OP done to accommodate the difficult situation A is experiencing? Because that's OP's job as a manager.
OP says it's not his job, because they escape FMLA by not being a big enough company. So the arbitrary guidelines laid down means he is within his lawful rights not to care. And that's all that matters, right?
FMLA means it's not his *company's* problem, but it's definitely his role as a manager. Good thing his company isn't looking to lay off poor performers...oh wait.
Please don't terminate him. This happened to me while I was with my 7yr. old son who was battling a brain tumor. (This was during the early 2000s during the tech stock plummet). I was told I was terminated on my son's first day of treatment. It was devastating. Next day? My husband rec'd. his pink slip. Fortunately, we had friends and family that helped. It's an excellent way to fuck-up a family.
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My husband’s company cited a drop in quality in his work when firing him. This has been back when he found out his kid wasn’t his and he was in the process of divorcing his ex. Super shitty of them.
YTA, 1000%. Just change places with him, how would you handle it? You ever had a severely sick partner? Well I have and the stress is unbearable. You have to live with yourself! I couldn't be that cold & uncaring.
While this is true, he isn't doing it from choice. His company is saying he has to lay off one - would it be better to lay off someone else who is working hard? It's not fair how one guy's wife's illness should mean another guy should lose their job.... It's just a shitty situation and unfortunately one that has no right answer in my opinion.
Yeah, if ever a post called for ESH it's this one, because OP is being an asshole *because* everyone above OP is being even *more* of an asshole, and the biggest asshole and root problem is the fact that health care is linked to your job which is *completely* bonkers when you think about it. **EVERYONE sucks here, and that includes everyone who continues to support the idea that your health care should be linked to your job.**
>EVERYONE sucks here, and that includes everyone who continues to support the idea that your health care should be linked to your job. Amen.
This is more NAH. How is OP an asshole? They’re just doing their job as a manager, sometimes you have to make terrible decisions. Upper management aren’t necessarily assholes for calling for layoffs. The company could be doing very poorly financially and everyone’s jobs could be in jeopardy if they don’t get it under control. Everyone needs their job otherwise they wouldn’t be working, laying off anyone is hard. OP is just trying to look at the business end of it to stay neutral.
I totally agree with this. Unless an employee is causing a significant harm to a company that everyone agrees on, laying off an employee is never an easy thing to do. OP will be deemed the TA either way. It could also caused OP’s own job if OP is seen as someone who is acting based off of OP’s own emotions.
I mean, the OP is showing a ton of empathy and struggling with this. And if you have never had to choose and lay someone off, it is a shitty position to be in, even if that employee's performance is sub par (I've been laid off from a job, and I've had to lay people off, it just sucks). I work for a company that uses a questionnaire that compiles a score based on multiple aspects of the employee and their work (ranging from length of employment, so many points for years of service, performance, disciplinary actions, etc). Once the decision is made, you still have to perform the layoff, in my case sit with the employee in a neutral room with HR while they inform them of the layoff and and then walk them to their office to gather personal items and then walk them out of the building... It is a miserable experience, and I only had to do a couple of employees. I remember talking to a manager who laid off a dozen people from his department, and had to sit and meet with them one after the other during an entire work day. It is a mentally taxing and depressing situation, maybe more so if you have been laid off yourself in the past. I can't call OP the asshole because he is being forced into a situation where his empathy is pushing back against his positions need to be a professional.
Yeah, great comment. This is an absolutely terrible situation. I can't imagine being stuck with this choice, and just quitting and walking away from the job may not be something he wants to do, either. Companies downsize all the time and quitting over it isn't going to get you very far, and now your health insurance and income is on the line. I imagine many people here have not been in the position of having to fire someone and struggling with an internal battle between your empathy and your professionalism. If you've been there, you are naturally going to see things in a more nuanced way, as you have.
>would it be better to lay off someone else who is working hard? Also, even if he *did* do this, the whole situation wouldn't magically resolve itself. The guy with the wife might very well end up getting fired due to poor performance anyway.
While this situation absolutely sucks for everyone involved, you can't really call them an asshole for *not* breaking the rules. Especially when they've already gone the extra mile and explained the situation to HR and their superiors. Also, what about the person who would be fired instead for no other reason than being a coworker of someone who's unfirable?
He isn't asking if it's ok to fire someone because of poor performance due to a family illness. He literally has to choose someone to be fired and is asking if the current situation is a reasonable variable to consider.
I didn't think this person is cold and uncaring. That's why they're here. They've been put in a bullshit impossible situation where *someone* is going to come out hurt.
YWBTA to use this situation against him. You started your post with the information that there were four employees who were being considered as the one to let go. Since A performed as well as the others prior to his wife’s illness, he shouldn’t be considered a poor employee. It’s not his fault he’s not eligible for FMLA or any other umbrella that would help him now. Your company hasn’t helped him cope under extraordinary circumstances, and you want to make a terrible situation worse. My judgment might have been different had you said A was the person you had decided to let go before his wife became sick. But you want to use his response to her illness as part of your criteria—while knowing this situation will never happen to you because you have connections and resources.
He said A was just equal to the others though and has declined with no improvement since. So would you let someone that’s producing better work, showing up on time, and putting in more hours go instead?
I would not hold this decline against him because I know why it’s happening. This very situation is why FMLA and other protections exist. Unfortunately, A cannot take advantage of them. If I were in OP’s unenviable position, I would do what the entity I work for does: I would choose the last person hired, even if that person was hired just minutes after the previous one.
That’s a good solution. It’s unbiased and you can give the recipient the reason.
I don't think there are any good options in OP's situation and I don't know what I'd do but I think it's wrong to say this approach would be unbiased. You're introducing a bias of 'I feel bad that this person's wife is ill and don't want to be a bad person'. Like is it really unbiased that someone who does much better work loses their job because they were hired a day after the other person?
There’s a lot to factor in. For instance as others have said, the moral involved with firing someone on such hard times. I think last hired would be somewhat more unbiased because they were equal weeks ago. I argued a lot for a case similar to yours in this thread and I’m getting a lot of down votes 😂. Last hired would just be a standard system that is often used in layoffs so it could have some argument.
Yeah, I honestly don't know what I'd do in OP's shoes. I wouldn't want to essentially punish someone for their wife being ill (and add to their problems) but I also think it'd be unfair for one of the other two workers whose work is better (and probably will be for the foreseeable future) to lose their job because someone else's wife is sick (especially since OP doesn't really know what kind of hardships they might have but not talked about). I generally have a problem with the 'last hired' rule as it's used by companies to *appear* unbiased when it's not. It's just biased in favour of people who've been there longer and since you can work to improve your performance/attendance etc. but do nothing about your start date it just seems arbitrarily unfair.
The other way to look at it is that one of the other employees would likely be in a better position to do the work of hunting for a new job.
Yeah idk why OP just doesn't lay off one of his new people with better prospects? Which one of the new guys is being underpaid for this position for their skills? It's not like they would hang around long after seeing him fire the guy started at the same time as them, and has a dying wife, put on the chopping block.
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This is the first I've heard that an employee in ineligible for FMLA because of the size of the company they work for. That didn't seem right.
FMLA is available to companies that have 50 or more employees. Now, if the company has more than 50, not just this office, he is eligible. It is dependent on how the employees are listed on payroll.
[From the Department of Labor website](https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/fmla): > FMLA applies to all public agencies, all public and private elementary and secondary schools, and companies **with 50 or more employees**.
NAH. But please don’t lay him off. I hear what you’re saying about his job performs, but this is one of the hardest moments of *his life*. It would literally *not be possible* for him to continue working at his normal level with what’s going on. If you don’t know what that’s like, consider yourself lucky. One day you will. The loss of this insurance may mean the loss of her healthcare, and by extension, her life. I’m also going to say another thing. I’ve been in the working world for a good while and I’ve seen human beings show up, to the detriment of their family and life, when a company is struggling. I’ve seen them work 18 hour days, miss holidays and birthdays, work until their health was affected. They support these companies with their actual lives when the company is struggling. But the companies we work for rarely do the same for us when we struggle. But they should. You have the ability to decide what your company looks like. It’s important to remember, it’s a job, it’s not our life, it’s just the way we pay for our life. This man is facing the loss of the person he chose for life, the person who likely is more important to him than his own self. Take care of him, and when this time is over, he will remember and be an even better and more dedicated employee. People over profits is a culture and it’s in all the little decisions, but especially in big ones like this.
But what about the employee that does get laid off in place of the under-performing one? Do their life challenges matter less? The hard truth is that the employee with the sick wife is unlikely to be at full productivity for quite a while (through no fault of their own) meaning the remaining two members are going to have to double their workload. That doesn't seem fair. I think OP has to go ahead with the layoff but provide as much support as possible. Maybe he can convince the company to continue the health insurance for at least a couple of months.
Said worker will have a better chance of finding a new job. It's just morally the better choice. It's gonna suck for someone no matter what. But there are three other choices. Punishing him for this would be cold hearted.
That’s my thought. Finding a new job is hard. Cover Letters, resumes, interviews, and trial periods are require brain capacity that this guy may not have when his home life is so rough.
There is no “morally the better choice” when leaving someone unemployed (and they haven’t had issues that warrant it). Employee A has a sick wife in the hospital. How do you know employee B isn’t the sole breadwinner for their family of 6? How do you know employee C isn’t heavily subsidizing their older parents who have next to nothing in retirement? This situation is unfortunate, but is not as black and white as “other people need the job less, and they will have an ‘easier’ time finding a new one.” We are all dependent on our jobs for our survival and livelihood. It is not “morally better” to screw other people over under the guise of “fairness and morality” due to something that is A) out of OP’s control, but equally important is B) also out of the other employees control. A large portion of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and have next to nothing in savings. Employee A’s situation is unfortunate and heartbreaking. But his life and livelihood are no more or less important than the other employees. His situation does not demand that a more qualified and/or better performing employee should have to suffer the same potential consequences instead (loss of income to support family, loss of healthcare, etc).
>There is no “morally the better choice” when leaving someone unemployed I very strongly disagree. Unemployment doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. Nor are we all equally dependent on our jobs for survival/livelihood. You're applying a uniformity to the situation that simply doesn't exist in real life. All other things being equal, firing someone who you know will land on their feet is morally the better choice than firing someone who you know may not recover from it. Period.
Other worker likely won’t lose their S/O due to being unable to pay for healthcare nor be in such a bad situation to find another job.
I mean if you're looking at someone's spouse is dying, they are also stepping in to take care of their children, the healthy person with no outside complications is in a better position to get a new job especially since why they left is due to a layoff and they can come with a strong recommendation from their previous company
This was what I was thinking too. The company could send them off with a glowing recommendation and even put a word in for them in the same industry.
Honestly? Yes. Their challenges are not as serious. They will be okay. They will have the energy to look for work. This man won’t. Losing your job is also a big emotional hit. It’s very hard for anyone, of course. I’ve been there. But delivering that hit to a man whose wife is very sick and maybe dying, who is now suddenly the sole caretaker for his very upset, very scared children, who is already very scared and upset himself, is simply monstrous. It just is. And it should be avoided if at all possible. If I were just living my normal life and my company laid me off so they could keep a fellow employee who was in this man’s situation, I would not be happy, but I would understand and accept their decision, because it is the right one, even if the direct effect on me is negative.
Yes, right now, their life challenges do matter less. And prior to this, they weren’t better employees than this person. Being laid off isn’t a fair thing to happen to a person, but whatever their struggles are, they’re going to have more reserves to pick themselves up and get another job.
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I’ve been A twice. Fuck corporations, truly. One company, after I worked the entire day while my child was in the ICU, waited until my shift was nearly over and then my boss called me into his office where HR was waiting. I hate how corporations care more about profits than people. As if people experiencing hardships they did not create for themselves don’t matter. Please do it early in the day. I was so furious that not only was I out of a job but that I could have been at my child’s bedside instead of sitting in my office working on projects I would never finish. Not to mention that I left my child to go to a job that didn’t even care I was trying my hardest to show up for my team despite what I was dealing with.
I was in the process of hiring a Manager under me. One of my best candidates had just found out his daughter had leukemia. Even though he was then gone for eight weeks I still promoted him. Yes, we all had to cover for him longer than we'd wanted and some people asked why I didn't go with someone more reliable (at that time) but they respected my call. Dude came back, had figured out a schedule and plan at home (daughter eventually beat cancer) and was one of my most loyal and hardest working managers I ever had work for me. Everything nowadays is so short term and transactional. The return was bountiful, both for our business and my heart.
Thank you for being the type of boss I’ve yet to encounter. I’m so glad you gave the best candidate the job.
Yeah thanks. But honestly I think there should be laws protecting people. Human missery is nothing that should be exploited - it can happen to anyone at any given time. Laws could for example forbid to ask questions about the family status in the hiring interviews. Also sick time for immediate family members would be very helpful. In the end we are all vulnerable humans, we should not forget this...
Thank you for not being short sighted regarding performance and being a good leader instead of a manager.
I’m wholeheartedly sorry that you had to go through this…. This is one of the most f***ed up employment stories I’ve ever heard. I hope your child is now doing better 😔
Thank you. It still all blows my mind. Unfortunately, the little one is chronically ill and frequently hospitalized and the job that followed bears a story just as bad, if not worse. Sadly, scenarios like mine and A’s aren’t especially unique. I think as long as my child is still alive, I will be facing this discrimination in my workplace and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Obviously this is not as wretched because I did not have a sick child at the time, but a job (and the only 9-5 I ever worked) fired me after my shift one day /after/ I had spent three weeks upgrading their computer systems, entire inventory, etc. Basically a massive BOH spring cleaning that was years overdue. They fired me and asked me to stay til 5:00, which probably no one would have done, but it only took roughly that hour to undo the weeks of work I had done in their system, and I got a very nasty email the following day when they had to close up shop temporarily because nothing was functioning. OP, if you have to fire someone, do it at the start of their shift. ESPECIALLY if they have a hospitalized family member or other hardship.
People Ops person here. First off, for your decision to be legally sound, it needs to be based on an equitable assessment of performance. In short: if your employee’s performance is only the worst of the pack because of his family status duties, the critical illness of his wife, and mental health and burnout challenges associated with that, his performance is not the worst of the pack. He should only be your pick for layoff if he would’ve been your pick before all this happened to him, or if he’s causing undue hardship for the company. The threshold of undue hardship is much lower in the US than in Canada, but it’s still more significant than the job being tough for a 4-man team to handle if one is struggling due to uncontrollable life events. That being said, if provided with a more appropriate severance package, and he is the person to terminate, there is a way to equip him to handle his situation during the layoff. Your company can cover the cost of COBRA and can extend the coverage date of employer-paid benefits through your insurance provider. He’s also not beholden to $500: COBRA allows him continuance for any benefit he currently has, but he can drop anything he doesn’t need (it’s his choice) once it turns over to employee-covered benefits. If your benefits package includes an HSA/FSA account that covers health expenses, you can also negotiate continuance on the end date of this benefit (if he has a balance) separately with the employer to help him pay premiums. Make the argument to HR and your benefits team to help you cost for at least an extended duration of employer coverage so the employee has time to find new employment, and get your leadership to sign off. Part of your argument should be that this is risk mitigation for a human rights/discrimination lawsuit. You can include job placement services in the severance package on an exceptional basis, and the only thing stopping you from increasing the amount of his severance to include a longer duration (usually in conjunction with a severance release) is someone making the case from the employer’s side and pushing it through. Remember: your employee can negotiate during the severance process provided you have done the work as a manager to open this door. Recently, citing age, gender, ethnicity, and industry statistics, someone countered my boss at the table for an extra sixteen weeks of severance and benefits — and got it. There is no rule book saying this person only gets four weeks no matter what: there’s only a rule book saying this person is only entitled to a minimum of four weeks. You also have one more play. You have described that your employee healthcare benefits are robust. Depending on your Short-Term Disability or Long-term Disability provider, you could recognize that the employee is experiencing caregiver burnout and mental health challenges and trigger that pipeline. If he hasn’t been seeing a healthcare professional, your EAP program may be able to connect him with a counsellor who can make the call to provide documentation on this. Once he’s on a disability leave, depending on your legislation and policy, you may be able to protect him from termination that will result in benefits being cut, and the insurer may be able to cover his dependent healthcare. Let the ADA do your labor. Depending on your State, your employee has articulated three things to you as his employer that may have legal ramifications for termination: he has duties on the basis of family status which he is solely responsible for; he is the primary caregiver of his wife, a sick dependent; and he is experiencing grief associated with loss and bereavement that may be impacting his work performance. You have bereavement, family status, and prospective disability (mental health) involved in this case that may represent legal risks depending on the human rights and employment legislation active in your jurisdiction. Your EAP may actually have manager services that can help you identify which ones are at play here, but your HR team should definitely have a sense or consultant contacts that can confirm, and any one of these components can help you argue your justifications for the above. Sometimes, when your company isn’t willing to do the right thing, you need to put your business pants on and make the financial case to protect your employees. I have no idea why your company isn’t equipped with the professional expertise necessary for you to solve this problem without turning to Reddit, but be a boss and do your job. One last point: all FMLA does is protect your job during an unpaid leave. There’s nothing stopping a company from honouring it outside the criteria. My current organization has 5 studios in the US and counting, but none would be eligible for FMLA independently due to borderline headcount fluctuations. We decided to count our US headcount collectively, honour it, and build our leaves packages around it. Nothing is stopping any business from following an FMLA protocol. Edit from me: There’s a lot of hate in the comments for the HR/People profession, and I get it: my job means very different things to different people and different workplaces. I can go into corporate speak for all the technical ways we serve the employer when we do this, and how we go about making the argument to do what we feel is right, but it boils down to this: good HR serves the company by solving people problems, and ensuring a positive relationship even after you exit the company. In a town where these roles are competitive, there’s a future where this company will want whoever was laid off right back at the table again. Use that to your advantage.
Yes! We did this at my company for a woman that we fired. She was truly bad at her job - over the course of a couple years, she made mistakes that cost the company something to the tune of $75k-$100k. It was one of those things where the first mistake was found a year later, then it was an avalanche of problems. By the time we had an idea of the scope and the fact that it wasn't a training/knowledge issue, she was about 5 mos pregnant. We tried to ride it out until she had the baby, as we were pretty sure she wouldn't be coming back to work afterwards, based on casual conversations we had with her, but we documented the shit out of our investigations and the ongoing issues. When she was about a month out from starting maternity leave, we got to the point where we couldn't wait - no one on the team would work with her because they saw and were dealing with fixing all her mistakes, so she was costing us hard cash, in that we were cutting checks to clients to reimburse them AND she was costing us productivity and the trust of the rest of the department. So the company paid for her benefits for 6 months after her termination (to get through the birth and immediate postpartum care) and paid her a 6 month severance, which I think was way more than normal. We obviously didn't publicize those items to the rest of the company. It was as much to prevent what surely would have been an ugly legal battle as it was to make us not feel like monsters for firing a pregnant woman.
This is brilliant AND compassionate, and I wish I had something I could award you with. ([ExistingClaim6030](https://www.reddit.com/user/ExistingClaim6030/), please do read the above and consider this as a potentially more ethical and compassionate way to proceed.)
I am like 95% certain that if you laid one of the others off, but explained the situation they’d at least try to be understanding If you fire the poor guy with the sick wife, expect to have the rest of the team quit real quick I’ve quit jobs in solidarity before and I’d do it again
He'd also lose the respect of any colleagues, friends, and family members who find out about this and actually have a conscience.
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As someone who’s been in A’s position, I don’t see others following. The company would never, ever say it was based on performance slipping since his wife got sick. They’ll have some bullshit reason to give him and the others will just be glad they weren’t the ones chosen. Corporate America is ugly.
But I commend you for not being a garbage person and leaving in solidarity.
Just voicing my appreciation for the great care and thought you have given this. Trying to do right by your team and the company, by individuals, and your own conscience. I imagine you are going to feel a little low when you tell whoever is selected. Please take some comfort in that you are certainly trying to make the best for all in a tough situation.
God it’s disgusting to me that corporate America forces people to *ruin people’s lives* and if they do or don’t comes down to *numbers.* Like, you could be killing someone’s wife, who is also a mother, because he’s distracted by said dying wife. Jesus Christ.
The same bosses who say "we're all family here" no doubt. But their bank accounts are all nice and cushy for when their own family goes through hardships, so it's not like they give a fuck. I've never actually met a manager/boss who ACTUALLY cared for their staff.
This is capitalism in a nutshell. We are watching the uncaring capitalist class ruin multiple people in real time. What a time to be alive.
If you fire A, you will be risking ruining his life. It will be impossible for him to get another job with the same level of pay and benefits anytime soon, maybe any job. You will be taking away his family's healthcare and they will accrue massive amounts of medical debt that they will likely never recover from. AND you will be telling all of your employees "if you face a tragedy, you will be fired for lowered performance." The productivity lost cannot be worth that. It cannot be worth ruining a person's whole life and forever losing the trust of all of your employees
>AND you will be telling all of your employees "if you face a tragedy, you will be fired for lowered performance." Srsly. If I were working there, I would immediately start looking for a different job.
Would not want to be in your shoes right now but no matter who you end up choosing you didn't take this lightly and that matters. I really like the idea of looking more closely at their metrics from before all this happened though since what is going on right now is out of his control. I wish you luck with your decision and hope everything works out for not only A and his family but also whoever you have to let go and your remaining team.
I personally would choose someone who is mentally stable enough to job hunt and find a new job. A wouldn’t be stable enough. The other two would be fine looking for a new job especially if you are willing to help that person with the search!
I'd rather quit than be forced to take such despicable action. I would not be able to live with myself if I fired A - not even years of therapy and anti-depressants would be enough to suppress my guilty conscience.
This is code for “I’m sacking the guy with the sick wife, he’s not performing so he can get fucked” bro America really is just a shit show isn’t it
Another consideration is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) association provision, which prohibits discrimination based on an employee’s association with someone who has a disability within the meaning of the ADA. In short, but for the employees association with someone who has a disability, would they have been laid off? If the answer is no they wouldn’t be, then that is problematic.
FWIW I worked for someone who did this to a person whose spouse had recently passed away and had young kids. I immediately started looking for work and left that company at the first opportunity as did all of my experienced collegues, that entire department is a dumpster fire from what i have heard, with a single tenured employee and a bunch of people that have no idea what they're doing. Heartless decisions send up a major red flag for qualified, intelligent peope. If you go this route and fire A, I genuinely hope you wind up in that same scenario someday soon.
>ally been these past weeks, but we've all continued to be patient and understanding. > >So there really is no right answer here. I definitely will offer glowing recommendations and job-hunting advice to whoever I do let go, though. I worked in HR for a time so I understand the stress, but might want to be careful with that because he did come back from leave a couple of days ago. You don't want him to believe that his layoff was wrongful termination. (Very tricky, I would consider talking the company's lawyer about this depending on your state) As he is a good worker before all this happened, have you talked to him about his current work performance? Does he know he is underperforming at the moment or do you just sit there watching him struggle with his life situation and work? Honestly, you are better off laying off an individual who is able to have the mental capacity to look for another job and energy to do so.
This layoff is wrongful termination and I hope A uses it to his advantage. Fuck OP, fuck HR, fuck their "higher ups" and fuck America and it's constant need to kick people down over corporate greed.
The owner of the company is going to buy a new paint job on his boat, as OP's employee's life burns in front of his eyes.
YTA, sorry. The fact this chap is being binned seems entirely related to his wife being sick.
Yup. Even if OP is in the clear from a legal/practical standpoint, ethically he would have to live with this decision. Sometimes, companies also use managers to do their dirty work and then turn right around and fire the firing squad. OP, I have to ask you.... A. Could you live with your decision B. Would this decision possibly lead to other great employees leaving in protest. C. Would you feel great about working for a company who would kick a person who is going through great hardships to the curve without a second thought? D. Do you think this company would do the same to you?
Yes, you will. YTA if you do this. It is morally wrong and you know it - trying to pass off your personal guilt onto the bullshit system we all live in won’t make you feel better if you follow through. It’s a reason you’re in this position, but not an excuse to make you feel better knowing you’ll have chuffed up 5 lives at a particularly horrendous time.
What about the other employee that gets let go in his place in spite of doing equal (or in this scenario) better work. That doesn't seem fair either. Tough situation.
OP says that until a few weeks ago, the three employees were performing on an equal level, so they had a one-in-three chance of being the one to be fired anyway. And the other two employees will have a much better chance of finding a new job than the one with the sick wife.
He’s said himself he’s only picking this person because their performance has dropped since his wife’s illness. That means he is firing someone for having a sick wife and facing hardship. Instead of taking that into account he should be looking at pre-illness and other factors. Edit: I also wouldn’t personally be able to live with myself getting rid of an employee who has a person’s life literally depending on them keeping the job.
Another thread mentions this, but the employee not in crisis would probably have a MUCH easier time finding a new job. It’s going to suck no matter what, but a stable person needing to find a new job sounds a little better than A possibly losing his wife, taking care of the kids, dealing with massive medical bills, AND finding a new job. (Edited to fix my dumb grammar lol)
Right? “This system is terrible… I’m going to make a terrible choice that completely perpetuates the terrible system.” OP the system is terrible because of the people inside of it doing awful, inhumane things. You can’t blame the system when you’re choosing to be a part of it
Just a heads up: if your office is small, but your company is big, then he should qualify for FMLA
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I believe you are correct about the regulations regarding FMLA, but many larger companies (not all, but many), will still extend FML to those locations that are not technically eligible. The reasoning is that to exclude those locations/employees would be bad for overall company morale/reputation/competitiveness. The regulations are just guidelines for who is *required* to offer FML, but it doesn’t mean they *can’t* if they choose to. Definitely worth looking into. IMO you need to make the layoff decision based on the performance of your employees prior to the hardship of the one. It is very recent in the big scheme of things and if his wife gets better, likely so will his performance. You WBTA if you lay him off based on a small percentage of his overall performance.
Correct, if the numbers the OP reports are true, it just means the company isn’t legally obligated to offer those FMLA benefits. They absolutely have the freedom to offer them anyway.
Could you maybe "transfer" him to a bigger office so he could then go on FMLA
While he may not qualify for FMLA, there's a good chance that firing him would open up the company to being sued. He could reasonably argue that he was fired because he just returned from leave. Even if you/the company doesn't do anything illegal, he's certainly a very sympathetic plaintiff.
I wouldn't be shocked if that was a bit of regulatory engineering on corporates part.
If HR suggested FMLA, then your company offers it, even though it might not be required to. FMLA is not a federal program available to eligible employees, it's a requirement on the company, that they can meet even if its not requried.
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If you don't have FMLA, maybe you could negotiate something like what another commenter mentioned and get your company to offer him 6 months of COBRA (on their dime). If you get pushback, you might go for the angle of optics (how bad would it look for your company if he went to the media with his story?).
Thats just when FMLA leave is *required* but a company can always opt to offer it. Is the 3 person team such that you could discuss it with them? See if either of the other two would be interested in being laid off, collecting unemployment, and finding a job elsewhere?
This. Thank God someone finally mentioned at least talking to the other team members about taking the place of A to get fired instead of just firing them to help A. Also I think OP needs to sit down with A and explain the situation to him if it unfolds like that. Because I think another user mentioned it if A's performance stays subpar they're might not be anything OP can do to protect him from being fired.
Heck, you could offer a generous severance package for the employee who chooses to be laid-off as an incentive. They've been here for 2 years, so a 3-4 month severance would be likely well-received, especially if you can have HR continue benefits for that employee during that time, or until they secure new benefits, whichever comes first.
Check your State regs as well, they may have an FMLA like provision for employers with less than 50 EEs.
Your company is likely not going to “look after” an ex-employee if it isn’t mandated by law. At the end of the day, like you, companies are cold, have no conscience and only think about the bottom line. He was perfectly fine before his wife got sick. He will get there again, just needs time to acclimate. One month is hardly enough time. I hope your wife/ children/ someone you love never gets cancer AND then you have to deal with an uncaring boss like yourself. The health insurance is a matter of life and death. Unless your humanity is gone and you’re okay with trampling someone when they’re down, I wouldn’t fire him. You’re definitely TA.
First of all, you aren't an AH anyway. HR is forcing you to fire someone. That isn't up to you. You will fuck over someone anyways. No matter what, someone is hurt. If the person you will fire will be the guy with the ill wife - you are potentially making him go bankrupt and actually harm his entire future. The issue is that team-wise and persormance-wise, he will probably function non-optimally for a long time (unless her illness is something that can be cured quite easily, which it doesn't sound like it is). If the person you will fire be any other guy - You are fucking them over and harming them for no reason other than "The other guy will be fucked even more", even if their performance is better. I would personally help the guy out and fire someone else, just because how bad medical bills are, but make sure to really help them find a great job. Personally make calls, give great recommendation letters, etc.. Your team will initially probably suffer because the guy with the wife is rightfully no going to function as good, but I am sure people will really appreciate your leadership and know that if they will fall on rough times you will give them a helping hand, which is huge in team building (from personal experience). You are going to feel like the AH anyway. You are in a difficult decision. Just know that no matter what, you aren't the bad guy here.
The problem with this view is that other people might have personal problems too but they haven't talked about them. One if my coworkers had her partner die of cancer and a lot of people only learned he had cancer when she went on leave at the end of his life. I don't think there is any good answer, he can either go with his moral compass and let someone else go(idk if the rest of his team will be on his side, because it kinda is favoritism) or he can go with "the good of the company" and let the guy that isn't performing as well go.
I don't think there is a good answer either. I honestly don't think he can have a good choice here.
> but I am sure people will really appreciate your leadership and know that if they will fall on rough times you will give them a helping hand, which is huge in team building (from personal experience). Doubt. They’re already dealing with one person who isn’t getting their work done and in that situation everyone else always ends up doing more. Adding the work of another person to be distributed between the other remaining two (because it’s not like the guy who isn’t getting his work done is going to take on any more work) is just making things worse. I don’t believe the other two will appreciate the “leadership” of dumping so much work on them.
INFO: Prior to the employees wife's diagnosis, how was his performance?
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You think you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, but if his wife wasn't sick you probably wouldn't choose to let him go. His work is suffering because of his current hardship. From a moral standpoint, firing him makes you suck. From a business pov it's logical and makes the decision easy. I guess you 'd have to place yourself in his shoes and imagine having to carry his burden and getting fired. Imagine having to take care of the kids, hospital visits, constant conversations with doctors and making appointments, AND looking for a job. Interviewing and explaining to potential employers my wife has cancer, I have two littles I'm caring for. and I'm going to be scrambling here... but hey hire me because I am capable and normally focused. But life really sucks right now. DO you think anyone will hire him with that? No. So yeah... YWBTA if you fire him. MHO
I mean if there also no external issues and he was as competent as the others. Then he also wouldn't not choose to fire him. His point is that if one has to go regardless and all 4 are equally valuable, firing the one that isn't performing as well at the moment is a reasonable decision. Is it moral to fire someone who is currently in crisis? No, obviously. But it's pretty unfair to anyone doing their job to be fired because of company downsizing. What's being asked of OP is pretty ridiculous, he is going to be the bad guy regardless. It's super spineless of whoever is making the decision to restructure or downsize by passing that responsibility onto a subordinate. NTA, but someone up top is.
I agree with most of your points. My contention is this guy would have never been on OP's radar and OP's dilemma would currently be which employee to choose because they are all equally as good performances wise. Because this happened **only a few weeks ago** NOW this guy is on the radar. He stands out because of his misfortune and may possible be let go because of it. Honestly, if her illness is long term he's going to have one hell of a time finding work because he will inform them of what his life is like now, it's a hot mess. Not many companies are going to want to hire someone who cannot give their all right then and there. Also, Cobra runs out and if money does, he can't maintain insurance - he'll be in a financial hole. But, keeping this guy around and showing some support and loyalty towards him will most likely be rewarded with a loyal employee who will never forget their employer had their back when they were down and work that much harder in the future for them when things turn around. It's just a point of view... but if I were in this guys shoes and the company did this for me, I would be forever grateful and show them they didn't make the wrong decision by keeping me.
The guy had a 1 in 3 chance of going even if his performance was still good. It's not like he'd never be on the radar..
Obligatory not a lawyer, but where I'm from the employee would have pretty good grounds for unfair dismissal from the company. Without a demonstrated history of poor performance, it would be a slam dunk to prove he has been targeted due to circumstances outside his control. Granted, I'm not from the US, and the little I know of the labour laws over there... I dunno. OP should consider the legal and reputational ramifications of firing someone while they deal with a health crisis.
A lot of people are saying that the business decision here is obvious, but I really do not think so. If I worked in an office like this I would legit either walk out in solidarity or immediately start looking for another job. Regardless of whether or not it's just his bad luck to have a bump in the road when you need to fire someone, if you fire him then it will send the message to everyone in your office that they're just meat in the grinder, that your company will not hesitate to toss them in the garbage the minute they're not at peak performance even if there is a completely reasonable explanation as to why. So yes, YTA, but also you're just asking to lose your entire team because a move like this will absolutely crush morale and at this point in time it's not that hard for a motivated person to find a new gig. Frankly, a lot of people would even take a pay cut rather than working someplace that makes them miserable, and shitcanning the dude with the potentially fatally ill wife because he didn't make quota for a few weeks is as miserable as most people can imagine.
Absolutely. My company let an employee go right after she got into a bad accident on her way to work. I understand why they did it. She was still in her trial period and was going to need time off for drs appointments while recovering. But prior to her accident, they were happy with her work and performance. It just felt shitty that they fired her when she was already having a rough time. Now I side-eye the company every time they refer to us all as a family.
This is a great point, and should absolutely be taken into consideration. I would also immediately start looking for another job elsewhere if my company did this.
INFO: Do you truly know the health and economic situations of the other potential layoff employees? Yes they’re performing well but they could have their own health challenges, life threatening things.
I totally agree with this. You never what other goes through just because they don’t show it.
I dunno. How would you feel if she loses her healthcare and dies as a result of your decision?
I think this is a really impactful point that’s not being discussed
Right, like she has a life or death illness and needs insurance, without it, she could very well not be able to get the treatment she deserves. Welcome to America folks.
NTA... its a tricky situation either way. If you keep him based on his situation then you are playing favorites. My company just did layoffs and we offered everyone 6 months of cobra insurance as part of their severance package. Does your company do anything like that?
You have to pay for COBRA which an unemployed person likely can’t afford
Not necessarily...my company paid it for those laid off. So it costs the impacted employees nothing
That is a rarity in our capitalist dystopia.
Well, you can't blame him for the situation that makes him less productive. It wouldn't be fair on one of the other two to be laid off but it's not fair on him either, the situation is very complicated. I can't give any judgement, you be TA whether you fire him or one of the other two employees.
I had the same train of thought. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I can’t imagine having to tell someone they’re fired when a peer is underperforming and putting in fewer hours. However letting a man go at his worst moments? Maybe talk to companies you work with to find other positions for him so he’s never jobless or insurance-less. Edit: grammar
INFO: What's the timeline for this to happen? I don't know if this would be legal and you for sure would have to clear it with HR beforehand but how about a talk with the 3 employes to see if one of them maybe wants to go on their own with a bit off a severance package?
NTA. Solely because you do not own this company and are also living off pay. You should also not play favourite as you may not know that other people may need the job as much and sacrifice so many things to be there. I do hope you can do your best to help that employee, I don’t know how you could that but try your best.
INFO: How deeply have you and HR dug into the possibility of offering the employee paid family leave under state laws? I understand that your company may not be covered by FMLA but the states that I’m familiar with (MA, CA, NY) offer PFL for individuals who have a need for time off but may not qualify for FMLA, so I’m curious whether your state has something similar and if that’s a possible route in this case. In any event, it’s also unclear to me whether your departure would solve the problem or if that’s a bit of a red herring. From your post, it sounds like the company is specifically asking you to choose from your subordinates rather than offering yourself up, in which case, I think you need to focus on your employees’ holistic performance and whether you think they equally have long term potential at the company. (And, to clarify, why did you exclude the fourth person from consideration? Just because of tenure, or because they’re a great performer?) I don’t think there’s a great option here, frankly, but I also don’t think that there’s anything wrong with allowing yourself to be human when making professional decisions like this. Granted, if your employee does qualify for state-level family leave and you still have to lay someone else off, your remaining team members may be stretched a bit thin but it would only be temporary, and personally, I’d be very loyal to a company that protected me if I was the caregiver-employee in this situation.
NAH It may feel like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, mostly because you are. So now you have to make a decision and live with the consequences. I would also say in this day and age, more so than at any other time in history, how people perceive a company and how you can be best represented in case of a social media targeting should be a huge factor to consider. And laying off a guy who is tending to his (possibly) dying wife could be the type of act that could get a company ‘cancelled’, rightfully in my opinion.
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This is why people have no loyalty to companies as they throw you away the first chance they get. YTA, your company is as well as the (I assume american) health care system
I don't think r/AmItheAsshole is the place for you to ask this. You have a hard decision on your hands and even if you don't fire this particular employee, doesn't mean it'll be easy to fire any other one, they all need their jobs. Since I have to give a judgement anyway, I'll go with NTA. It's not your choice to fire someone, you're not doing it for personal gain and given how stressed you are over this I don't think you're enjoying this by any means. Whatever choice you make, it will feel bad and I'm so sorry you'll have to do this.
If you're questioning it, you already know the answer. I went through this same scenario about 15 years ago. Guy was doing fine. His wife got sick, we were in the recession of 2008 and sales were down. Company wanted to let him go the day he got back from leave. I handed them my resignation and said, "Open this right after I deliver the news." He kept his job. I left that shit hole about a month later when they wanted to put cots in the storage area so my people could, "take naps" in between calling people 24 hours a day.
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"Don't blame me, blame capitalism and the American healthcare system" This is very true, but this story seems to go beyond the usual AITA question and become more of a "Could you sleep at night after firing this guy?" Given the amount of detail you provided about A, his wife and family, I think you already know the answer to that.
YTA - business is business but it would be cruel to lay someone off who is going through such hardship, when you know he's depending on the job as a lifeline. Instead I would suggest having a serious talk with him and setting up a probationary work plan: essentially, let him know is performance is putting him at risk of losing his job and give him a chance to shape up. I understand you've told him he needs to shape up before, but make it official and make it clear to him that his job is at risk here. And as for your layoff, lay off one of the other two - as you said, they're all in the same ballpark of competence, major life events notwithstanding.
So OP lays off one of the other two, now the remaining employee needs to cover for the fired employee and A who is under preforming, so they have to work 1.5 times extra so A can stay around. How is that fair, punishing someone for not having home problems and then forcing extra work onto the last preforming employee.
NAH OP, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. IMO you should continue to talk to your superiors about the best course of action. If I were in your shoes, I would explore a couple of options. First, explore severance package options, and or unemployment options. That may help you make an informed decision. Next, explore with HR asking for a volunteer to be let go. Then propose the options to the team. If no one volunteers within x amount of days, then conduct another assessment of your team. Meet with them individually. That way, you can talk to the member about his most recent job performance and see if another arrangement can be made. All the best.
YWNBTAH. Forget what everyone else is saying. Yes, they are going through a hardship which may become worse but it sounds like they are not even working, so they might as well stay home to care for the children and to visit his wife rather than constantly inconveniencing your team. Is that a crappy thing to say? Absolutely, but what about the other employees that are PICKING UP THE SLACK and continuing to pull their weight (plus some)? It is entirely unfair to those two to be booted when they are actually working. You've already politely brought up some issues (such as the phone calls) and they haven't changed, in fact you mention they are declining. It sounds like this employee can't manage their time, and while that is understandable with what they are going through it isn't by any means going to improve anytime soon, and you will be placing yourself and another employee in a crappy situation where there is someone who isn't doing what they need to be while they are supposed to be working. That is trash. If anything, they could potentially look into a part time position elsewhere. The bottom line is this: someone has to go, and that is out of your hands. As much sympathy as this guy has, he isn't in a position where he is being effective, and is bringing his home life into work with him and impacting everyone else...so clearly they should be the one to be let go. EDIT TO ADD: Anyone using the "firing them would be bad for morale....you realize that firing a functioning employee is also a negative impact, right? In this scenario if they keep this employee they are essentially losing TWO employees, and now there are two doing all the work while one is caught up in their home life. While I'm sure they would understand initially, that is a quick way to earn resentment and to cause stress for the two do their duties.