Employee Terminated, then resigns

mcc308

I terminated an employee for cause on Monday. On Tuesday, I received a hand-delvered letter from the employee stating that she was resigning from her position effective the day I terminated her. How should I respond?

Rockie

I can't see how an employee who is a terminated employee could resign. I would ignore it.

San Francisco

I would probably reply just for the record. It would be succinct: Dear ____, I received the letter you hand-delivered on _______ indicating that you have voluntarily resigned. However, as you may recall, you were involuntarily terminated on _________, so your resignation cannot be accepted. Please be advised that your involuntary termination for (whatever reason) remains the reason for your separation from our company.

Or something to that effect.

Elizabeth

ray a

We had a big discussion about this a few weeks ago. Some of us agreed, we allow ee's to resign in lieu of termination. A couple of caveats though. It depends on the severity of the cause for termination and the resignation usually happens immediately upon hearing the termination news. I've never had someone come back the next day and resign. Because of the time lag, I would tend to stick with the termination for cause.

pasbrig

As crazy as this may sound you might want to consider the quit issue. I don't know how unemployment works where you are located, but the following could happen. If you discharged for what you perceive to be cause and the ex-employee files for u/c benefits then the burden of proof is on your firm to justify the termination. If you lose then the u/c benefit is charge against your company's account. With the quit issue in hand the individual would not be paid u/c benefits from your company's account. In the state of Wisconsin any u/c payments would come out of the state's balancing account thus not affecting your account.

Whatever

While my gut reaction is to ignore the letter, however, instead I think it would depend on cause of the termination. Why was ee terminated?

Don D

I recommend you stick with your original termination decision and the termintion document. Ignore the letter but stick it in the file with a notation as to its meaning. If you had a good enough case for termination in the first place, I see no reason to back up and change gears. Even in the case of unemployment insurance, if it came to a hearing and he said, "Hell, I went ahead and quit because they had just told me they were firing me (for a bad reason), he could still draw. You initiated the separation, no matter what reason goes on your final form. Honesty in termination is the best policy and you won't ever have to recall what happened three years from now.

mwild31

I agree with Don. Usually, I like to avoid UI costs at all costs - however, since your company initiated the termination - you must have already known the potential risk for UI and decided to go forward so I would follow that plan.