Severance Packages: Soliciting a good severance package

Imagine that you have been working for a company for 15 years and are in a management position. Last year, you got a new boss. Suddenly, you are not the rising star you have always been and your performance has been criticized on a regular basis. Recently your boss did a formal performance review which was critical of almost all aspects of your performance and leadership skills.

Until this new boss arrived, you were enjoying a career of constant advancement within the company. Now, it is clear that despite your best efforts, your career is going nowhere fast.

You have concluded that the bottom line is that the new boss just doesn't like you. There is nothing you can do to change her mind. You feel humiliated, frustrated and depressed. You would like to move on to a new opportunity at a company which would appreciate your contribution but can't afford to simply quit and take your chances that you will find a job quickly. What you would really like is for the boss to fire you and give you a severance package to bridge the gap.

This is the kind of letter you should write:

Dear Boss:

I was significantly disheartened by your comments in my recent performance review. I am not confident that this situation can be resolved. It may be that it is in the interest of both the company and myself that we part ways. If the company were prepared to offer me a severance package which appropriately recognized my 15 years of service in a management position, I would give it very serious consideration. If we can come to an amicable agreement with respect to severance, I would be prepared to resign my employment.

I wish to make it clear that I am not resigning my employment and unless and until we can conclude an agreement, I will continue to give a 100% effort to my job responsibilities as I always have. I look forward to hearing from you with respect to the above.

Yours sincerely,
Employee

When I suggest such a course of action to employees, they often are not optimistic about the results. They ask why the boss wouldn’t just fire them anyways if they wanted to get rid of them. The fact is that even the most demonic of bosses is not thrilled at the prospect of terminating somebody's 15-year career. Some of them would rather just harass you until you quit in frustration. Others worry that they will not be able to justify the termination to their superiors.

Often, the employee opens the door by sending such a letter. It is all that it takes to provoke a deal being quickly concluded. Sometimes it is not the money involved in the severance package but the politics of the termination that are the stumbling block for your boss. By giving permission to the boss to enter into the discussion, the door is quickly opened.

If negotiations do not ensue, you must be very careful to continue to do exactly what you said in your letter. Show up for work and continue to do your job to the best of your abilities. Employers who are stingy about the money will sometimes try to get you to indicate that you are actually quitting. Never do that. Never deviate from exactly what you said in the letter; either a reasonable severance package or you keep doing your job.

There have been a few instances where employers have attempted to take the position that the letter such as the one outlined above constituted a resignation. They have failed in that endeavour.

Just as a termination by an employer has to be clear and unequivocal, so to must a resignation. The letter in this column is, at best, a conditional resignation; if your conditions are met, you will resign.
Make no mistake about it, sending such a letter to your employer is a fairly drastic move. The relationship between you and your boss after such a letter has been sent if a severance package is not quickly negotiated can be quite tense. You have to be willing to brave the battle, stick to your guns and keep doing your work. It must become clear to your employer that you are not going to quit with nothing and you are not going to give them a reason to terminate you with just cause.

Although the letter I have outlined in this column is an effective general approach, I would strongly recommend that before you actually send it, you review your particular situation with an employment lawyer.

In situations where the relationship between the employee and their boss has become quite negative, my experience is that this letter will provoke severance negotiations in 60 to 70% of the cases.

One last word. Until the deal is signed, you keep showing up for work until somebody tells you in writing not to. If someone tells you to go home while a package is worked out, tell them to put it in writing. In the absence of such instructions being in writing, it's amazing how many times, if negotiations break down, the employer will claim that the employee actually walked out without permission and thereby resigned their employment.