Unemployment Ridiculousness
Nicole
87 Posts
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 01-14-04 AT 03:37PM (CST)[/font][br][br]I wasn’t sure where to post this so I’ll try here.
I’ve been in HR for the past 17 years with the same company dealing with all aspects of HR but this was a first for me and totally blew me away!!
The employee was coached several times concerning his performance and attitude with co-workers and our customers. (Scary thought since he was a Customer Care Rep in the field). In his most recent coaching session the manager asked her boss, the department director, to sit in and help her coach the employee. The employee wasn’t a happy camper and ended up storming out of the office yelling at the Director that he could kiss his a$$.
Needless to say the employee was terminated. He filed unemployment and I contested the claim stating gross insubordination as the reason he was terminated. The claim was paid in spite of his behavior. Yes, I did consult our corporate attorney who told me we would lose but I pushed on anyway.
So, in the great state of Florida I guess it’s now OK for you tell your boss (or their boss) to kiss your posterior and still get to collect unemployment benefits!
Thanks for letting me vent..
Sign me off as ………
Incredulous in Florida!
I’ve been in HR for the past 17 years with the same company dealing with all aspects of HR but this was a first for me and totally blew me away!!
The employee was coached several times concerning his performance and attitude with co-workers and our customers. (Scary thought since he was a Customer Care Rep in the field). In his most recent coaching session the manager asked her boss, the department director, to sit in and help her coach the employee. The employee wasn’t a happy camper and ended up storming out of the office yelling at the Director that he could kiss his a$$.
Needless to say the employee was terminated. He filed unemployment and I contested the claim stating gross insubordination as the reason he was terminated. The claim was paid in spite of his behavior. Yes, I did consult our corporate attorney who told me we would lose but I pushed on anyway.
So, in the great state of Florida I guess it’s now OK for you tell your boss (or their boss) to kiss your posterior and still get to collect unemployment benefits!
Thanks for letting me vent..
Sign me off as ………
Incredulous in Florida!
Comments
I honestly think the ex EE spoke with the case manager at Unemployment and played on his emotions, based on a conversation I had with the case manager about hardships the employee had been having. The case manager badgered me to death about "did we give the employee enough chances for improvement", etc. Oh my god! Severe attendance and performance problems and now he's lounging around on unemployment dollars.
Grrrrrr
I recently had an employee who missed three days of work due to illness. On the third day when he called in he was instructed to speak with me and he informed the supervisor, "I ain't dealing with that s***!" and didn't contact me. When he came to work the next day he refused to start working until he spoke with me. We explained that he needed to obtain a physician's slip allowing him to return to work in accordance with our attendance policies. He stated that he would do that and would call me later in the day. Never heard from him again. We terminated based on job abandonment. He filed for UI and, even though I provided 12 pages of information and felt he quit due to job abandonment, he was still granted benefits!!!
It's so frustrating that the states allow people to do pretty much whatever they want and grant them these benefits!!!
Do I have to arrange special accommodations for you, can you handle the Wisconsin temps?
The temperature is currently 13 degrees. Pack your long johns and get up here. I'm appealing his unemployment determination because you told me to.
I attended a seminar being given by one of the Commissioners of Unemployment Compensation office in Florida, and he specifically said that Unemployment Compensation was designed to give benefits to those who have lost their jobs. He explained that the only reason people are turned down is due to "gross misconduct" - when pressed for examples, he mentioned deliberate and aggregious acts of specifically targeted safety "violations" or acts of deliberate aggression, i.e. setting the building on fire, or documented theft (which had to be witnessed).
Since then, we no longer fight unemployment claims unless we can meet their definition of "gross misconduct".
And although we don't agree with their definition of "gross misconduct", we no longer waste the time to fight claims we feel fit our definition.
Hope this helps.
I truly do not believe this would have happened in Georgia. They do ask for documentation, but also don't let the employee get away with things of this nature. (That is one reason our fund has been fairly solvent.)
I too wonder if you requested a "live/face to face" hearing or was it done through the mail and on the phone. Often times the employee tells things that are exactly true (or he sees it differently) but if in person they tend not to or the hearing officer asks more questions. I have lost very few cases I have taken to appeal and gone in person. (May be I select my "fights" because I don't consider myself "that good".) Have you apprealed it all the way up? If not, you might want to examine the state unemployment law and see if you can't point something out that would reverse the decision.
E Wart
Since 9/11, Government has not at all been reluctant to agree with employers who use gross misconduct where any threatening language is present.
In a number of cases where employees walked out saying things like "I'm going to kick your a$$" or the like, unemployment in Massachusetts was denied.
As HR personnel we need to always consider how we record our reasons for termination. If any kind of threat was involved make sure you put that in the documentation.
Remember: In Massachusetts, kissing is ok whereas kicking is not!
And as Don said, always appeal.
Kathi
Last month I participated in a telephone hearing for a previous ee who was terminated for repeated attendance violations. I faxed over 30 pages of documentation to the administrative law judge, in the correct time frame, participated in the hearing and won due to several factors (I believe). One, the former ee did not participate in the hearing. Two, our documentation was all in order and three; we had the correct wording in the termination documentation. I agree with Don that unless there is a valid reason not to protest, always try to contest these.
We recently terminated a medical assistant because of her skill level. She had been trained, counseled, etc. in the proper way to perform certain patient care functions. She advised us before hire that she knew how to perform these duties. Because of the inherent danger to patients, we terminated. Unemployment ruled that she was entitled to benefits because of "no willful wrongdoing on her part."
We also had a case where an office person stole medication from the medical closet where non-authorized personnel are not to enter. A patient actually saw the employee wait until someone came of the closet and she snagged the door before it locked. She was observed taking the medication, hiding it and taking it out in a trash bag to her car. Of course, she was terminated. She filed and took it to the highest level she possibly could. She utlimately lost, but what a waste of time for our company to have to attend such ridiculous meetings.
Unemployment is just another example of a benefit that was put in place for good intentions - to help people until they could find other employment, but it has been so abused that many deserving people are embarassed to file when they need it.