Reduction in force

marianna

We are looking at reduction in force ( I currently have 25 employees) possible 4-5. Our employee policy manual addresses RIF indicating that it is not seniority, but ability to do the job, teamwork, initiative and a few other factors that go into the decision to reduce. One of the potential ee's has been here for 8yrs. The work produced is substandard, was close personal friends with the previous administrator (file lacks a lot of the negative documentation) but we do have reports which monitor the errors of all employees and hers are the highest. Being here that long she sort rulls the roost, intimidates new employees, is the queen of the gossip mill and refuses to be a team player. This ee is also over the age of 40. Some of the the other potential ee's are in the same age category but we are keeping more than that age group on staff. All of my emooyees have signed arbitration agreements. Is there anything else I should be looking at from an outside prospective? Sorry for the long post but wanted to give a little history about this. Thanks for any input.

Gillian3

If you decide that the decision should be made based on errors, then the others should be made on errors as well. If you retain the person who makes the second highest level of errors, your rationale will be weakened. Do an analysis and see where that rationale gets you. The age issue should not be a problem if there is representation of over 40 individuals in both the layoff and retained groups, however, you could be in trouble if the 4 of the 5 layoffs are over 40 and there is only one or two over 40 in the retained group. This one becomes a bit of a numbers game. You can make decisions based on this indivuals behavior but they are weakened without documentation - depends on what you have. Maybe you use a combination of errors and interpersonal issues. Arbitration agreements are only as good as how they are written, particularly in California. If they seem to overly protect the employer, to the disadvantage of the employee, their validity could be questioned.