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In general, "at will" employees don't have anything to negotiate. It's strictly take it or leave it. There are no contracts unless the CEO gets involved, and

In general, "at will" employees don't have anything to negotiate. It's strictly take it or leave it. There are no contracts unless the CEO gets involved, and the CEO won't be getting involved just for you. The hiring manager will just pass on you and move to the next-best candidate. You negotiate your starting salary, and that's it. So make sure you account for the likelihood that you will get zero notice and zero severance when you get fired. Which is to say you need to ask for more money, and save some of it in high-liquidity, low-risk form. People wonder about salary inflation, but when you look at total compensation, it isn't quite so extreme. Companies cut or eliminate benefits, and employees have to demand higher salary to compensate. The salaries are going up at a higher than usual rate, because companies are slashing benefits packages faster than usual. Those companies are figuring out the hard way that employees are not clueless about the value of their benefits. New employee candidates coming in will see the crap benefits and ask for more money. Existing employees will leave for either benefits more similar to what they once had, or for more money. In general, cutting the benefits results in being less competitive overall as an employer, because it usually costs less for a company to buy the benefits in bulk, than for employees to buy them piecemeal. In the case of severance, the major advantage for the company doing it is that you absolutely cannot spend that money on anything else until you are fired. You could get that by buying a special insurance policy for unplanned unemployment, or you can discipline yourself to never touch your "severance fund" except in dire emergency. Also, you are taxed on a severance payment in a year when you otherwise have less income, because you got fired, whereas a personal "severance fund" is taxed as you earn the principal, and again when you liquidate, if you realized gains. Make sure the company will be paying for all that before you start work, because once you start, most of your leverage disappears. They no longer need to convince you to quit your previous job, and only need to do just enough to keep you from quitting your new one. The last severance I got was in 2002. No company since has ever been willing to pay it out or even negotiate the possibility. Severance is dead. Long live the personal "oh shit" fund. Make your employer pay you enough to have one, along with a personal retirement fund, a personal vacation fund, a personal health care fund, a personal commuting budget, and personal equivalents of all those other things that many companies once paid for, but no longer do. We don't need a union, if everybody can individually commit to asking for more money.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
You are quite simply wrong. When you negotiate severance in an at-will employment agreement, it will involve the same kinds of contractual documents you have to sign as when you are offered severance upon a sudden termination. There are usually documents relating to non-disparagement and possibly enhanced agreements about non-disclosure or non-compete that extend beyond things in the company handbook. They include specific language in which you acknowledge the employer is offering you something of material value, the severance pay, continuation of benefits, etc., in exchange for your agreement to those conditions, and generally also a waiver of ability to make claims for additional compensation. These are generally legally enforceable, and severance is not merely a discretionary component that is up to the company. It's something you can (generally without that much trouble) actually sue for, similar to unpaid wages, if the company terminates you without paying. I have never once heard of a company requiring a C-suite executive to get involved for creating these very routine types of severance agreements for regular employees, and I myself have negotiated severance in a standard at-will employment agreement at my three most recent jobs.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  As a hiring manager myself I have not run across this situation, but now I am curious. I'm going to get together with our HR folks and ask them what would happen if a candidate made such a demand. I don't work for a huge company, but with a couple thousand U.S. employees we are not tiny either. I am interested in what I hear back. I would certainly never have negotiated this myself while looking for a job so it will be educational either way. Thanks for giving me something to think about!
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    I’m surprised to hear that it’s not that common for your firm. Negotiating severance is common enough that e.g. when I talk to third party recruiting firms for hiring for my team, it’s one of the first questions they ask. Large firms usually have a very low baseline severance plan calculated something like 1 week of pay for each year of tenure, and they may say in the handbook it is only offered on a discretionary basis at the time of termination. But I’ve always had no problem negotiating a customized severance package regardless of whether a firm had that sort of policy, especially because severance should fairly reflect compensation for any time or opportunity costs an employee might endure due to a non-compete agreement, etc., which means usually it should be at least several months of salary and possibly continuation of benefits (e.g. not externalizing that cost to the employee through COBRA but actually continuing to pay their premiums for a set amount of months). Huge companies are harder to convince of this, and in that case I was able to negotiate the severance amount to instead be paid as a sign-on bonus, so that saving the money to cover costs in the event of being terminated was my responsibility, but the company still agreed to pay for it.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

You are quite simply wrong. When you negotiate severance in an at-will employment agreement, it will involve the same kinds of contractual documents you have to sign as when you are offered severance upon a sudden termination. There are usually documents relating to non-disparagement and possibly enhanced agreements about non-disclosure or non-compete that extend beyond things in the company handbook. They include specific language in which you acknowledge the employer is offering you something of material value, the severance pay, continuation of benefits, etc., in exchange for your agreement to those conditions, and generally also a waiver of ability to make claims for additional compensation. These are generally legally enforceable, and severance is not merely a discretionary component that is up to the company. It's something you can (generally without that much trouble) actually sue for, similar to unpaid wages, if the company terminates you without paying. I have never once heard of a company requiring a C-suite executive to get involved for creating these very routine types of severance agreements for regular employees, and I myself have negotiated severance in a standard at-will employment agreement at my three most recent jobs.

rootusrootus 8y ago
As a hiring manager myself I have not run across this situation, but now I am curious. I'm going to get together with our HR folks and ask them what would happen if a candidate made such a demand. I don't work for a huge company, but with a couple thousand U.S. employees we are not tiny either. I am interested in what I hear back. I would certainly never have negotiated this myself while looking for a job so it will be educational either way. Thanks for giving me something to think about!
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  I’m surprised to hear that it’s not that common for your firm. Negotiating severance is common enough that e.g. when I talk to third party recruiting firms for hiring for my team, it’s one of the first questions they ask. Large firms usually have a very low baseline severance plan calculated something like 1 week of pay for each year of tenure, and they may say in the handbook it is only offered on a discretionary basis at the time of termination. But I’ve always had no problem negotiating a customized severance package regardless of whether a firm had that sort of policy, especially because severance should fairly reflect compensation for any time or opportunity costs an employee might endure due to a non-compete agreement, etc., which means usually it should be at least several months of salary and possibly continuation of benefits (e.g. not externalizing that cost to the employee through COBRA but actually continuing to pay their premiums for a set amount of months). Huge companies are harder to convince of this, and in that case I was able to negotiate the severance amount to instead be paid as a sign-on bonus, so that saving the money to cover costs in the event of being terminated was my responsibility, but the company still agreed to pay for it.