4 ms·

Personally I've always been put off by the perceived (let me know if I've got this wrong) ease with which American companies can get rid of you, and the short n

Personally I've always been put off by the perceived (let me know if I've got this wrong) ease with which American companies can get rid of you, and the short notice they can give you (2 weeks is what I've heard) - here in the UK the law is heavily weighted towards the employee.

yardie 15y ago
The short notice can be even shorter than that, real-time. 2-weeks is just a courtesy. But I've been on the other end where it didn't takes months of negotiation to get work. In the past this wasn't a problem there was enough work for everyone, but with globalization, outsourcing, and automation the scales have tipped greatly in favor of the employer. The UK is only slightly better in labor law. A lot of the UK companies have learned a lot from the former colony. If they can't fire you outright they'll just get more creative (ie. We caught you using the office copier to make flyers for your football league, fired for abusing company resources). My wife's company (big UK company) is in a protracted labor dispute with the unions. So what do they do? Find exagerated reasons to get union leaders fired. Of course unions have lawyers, but the company can keep it in court longer than the union can pay its lawyers.
- singular 15y ago
  Ouch that's terrible. I guess there are always ways around things... I had always assumed you were protected. I guess that, no matter how protected you think you in the eyes of the law, being a wage-earner is more of a risk it seems to be.
  - idiopathic 15y ago
    It is scary, and they will fire you. That scared me a lot. My first job was with the US Federal Government (I was a scientist at NIH) who had nicer terms, plus a reputation of not being able to fire egregiously bad employees. But then I switched to the private sector and I have since seen that company fire lots of people quickly. To be fair, none of those fired quickly were H1B holders, and the US citizens who were fired were given very generous severance payments (this is a management consultancy that knows former employees are future customers). My advice is to accept it, and then feel liberated by it. The same contract allowed me to leave my employer without feeling guilty, which is exactly what I did when I wanted to start my own company. For me, the turning point was when I wanted to have a family. I just found the idea of being forced to leave the country when your employer does not want to sponsor you anymore too awful, especially as I had experienced it as a child when my father had a UK university do the same thing to him. We had 1 month to pack everything and leave the country.
underwater 15y ago
I'm moving from Australia to Palo Alto next week. The no-fault firing worries me a bit. Knowing that I could have ten days to leave the country that I intend to settle in is scary. I reassure myself that the company who hired me would not have spend thousands on the hiring process and then turn around and fire me on a whim. Also, firing a worker on a sponsored visa would look pretty bad on their part. It would make it much harder for them to attract talent from overseas in the future.
petervandijck 15y ago
It gives less security, yes, but it also makes hiring much easier.
pstack 15y ago
Employers can fire you at-will, without cause, in America. It is traditionally considered good practice for an employee to give an employer two weeks notice before quitting a job, so that they have time to try and fill your position. It is not the case the other way around. If your company decides they need to trim the ranks tomorrow, you may walk in at 9:00am and be told you are no longer needed and escorted out of the building by security with a box of your belongings at 9:05am. The only protections are that you can not be fired do to discrimination based on gender, age, religion, or ethnicity. In some states, you can not be fired over sexual orientation (but in about 30 of the 50 states, that is not protected and you can therefore be fired for being gay). The protections are rather meaningless, however. How are you going to prove that you were fired because you are too old or because you're a woman or because you aren't the right religion, if your employer says "no, we just fired her because she smelled really bad" or "we fired her for her poor work performance". Of course (other than protecting against discrimination), I'm not sure what the alternative is. If I'm writing the paychecks, I should be able to determine how many people I need in my company and when I no longer need them -- whether due to finances or simply not liking them. Why should I be forced to keep someone on the payroll for weeks or months beyond when I can afford them or be forced to deal with someone in the office for weeks or months after they have worn out their welcome? My employer is free to hire or fire me at will and I'm free to find another job. They're private entities with obligation to provide for me or look after my well-being. I know there are other differences, too. For example, in America, we consider vacation time to be something for professionals who have put in their dues while paid vacation seems to be issued to employees along with their office chair straight out of the gate in a lot of other countries. My mother is in her fifties and still has no paid vacation at her work. If she were to come visit me, she would have to take time off of work (meaning a big hit to the pay check for that month). Same goes for both of my siblings. On the other hand, a professional with fifteen or twenty years of experience and a college degree can earn ten days of vacation per year, where I work (though not immediately, you only accrue vacation time fast enough to get two weeks a year of vacation once you have worked at this company for at least seven years). On top of that, we have six or seven company holidays (New Years, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas). Again, I don't really have a problem with that, either. I mean, why should I get paid when I'm not working? If my employer wants to entice me to their company or keep me at their company and in high spirits by offering to pay me to take time away from work, then that's their decision and it's great. But I don't see a particular reason that they should be obligated to compensate me for time I'm not spending on them.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
DenisM 15y ago
I would not want to work in a place where it's hard to fire poor performers. My preference would be to make it easy to fire, but provide a sufficient safety net, so that people are not fearful of the temporary disruption. As it is now, firing someone for poor performance at one large American software company I worked for (WA state) takes 6 month. They have to be told they aren't doing well, then their every step is documented, and they are continuously told how to improve, and only after they fail to heed the warnings they get fired. People who steal or harass others get fired immediately, but otherwise it's a long slog to kick someone out. All this song and dance is done to protect against lawsuits. It's a drag on the business, and probably a deterrent to hiring.
- arghnoname 15y ago
  Giving people time to improve is nice. It's a balance. If someone could be a good performer but is going through some issues, etc, and with some time or a warning or some such thing, return to or become a good performer again, that's a win for everyone. Recruitment is expensive and when corporations can help their employers and their bottom line at the same time, this is a good thing. Unfortunately when you have these sort of blanket policies that are more necessary in large organizations, the guy in a temporary crisis and the person who got hired somehow but can't spell their name get the same treatment. I think the balance is to give enough time that good people who have slipped can get back on track, but not so much that it be too heavily abused by less capable employees who would probably ultimately be happier somewhere more in fitting with their ability.

yardie 15y ago

The short notice can be even shorter than that, real-time. 2-weeks is just a courtesy. But I've been on the other end where it didn't takes months of negotiation to get work. In the past this wasn't a problem there was enough work for everyone, but with globalization, outsourcing, and automation the scales have tipped greatly in favor of the employer. The UK is only slightly better in labor law. A lot of the UK companies have learned a lot from the former colony. If they can't fire you outright they'll just get more creative (ie. We caught you using the office copier to make flyers for your football league, fired for abusing company resources). My wife's company (big UK company) is in a protracted labor dispute with the unions. So what do they do? Find exagerated reasons to get union leaders fired. Of course unions have lawyers, but the company can keep it in court longer than the union can pay its lawyers.

singular 15y ago
Ouch that's terrible. I guess there are always ways around things... I had always assumed you were protected. I guess that, no matter how protected you think you in the eyes of the law, being a wage-earner is more of a risk it seems to be.
- idiopathic 15y ago
  It is scary, and they will fire you. That scared me a lot. My first job was with the US Federal Government (I was a scientist at NIH) who had nicer terms, plus a reputation of not being able to fire egregiously bad employees. But then I switched to the private sector and I have since seen that company fire lots of people quickly. To be fair, none of those fired quickly were H1B holders, and the US citizens who were fired were given very generous severance payments (this is a management consultancy that knows former employees are future customers). My advice is to accept it, and then feel liberated by it. The same contract allowed me to leave my employer without feeling guilty, which is exactly what I did when I wanted to start my own company. For me, the turning point was when I wanted to have a family. I just found the idea of being forced to leave the country when your employer does not want to sponsor you anymore too awful, especially as I had experienced it as a child when my father had a UK university do the same thing to him. We had 1 month to pack everything and leave the country.

underwater 15y ago

I'm moving from Australia to Palo Alto next week. The no-fault firing worries me a bit. Knowing that I could have ten days to leave the country that I intend to settle in is scary. I reassure myself that the company who hired me would not have spend thousands on the hiring process and then turn around and fire me on a whim. Also, firing a worker on a sponsored visa would look pretty bad on their part. It would make it much harder for them to attract talent from overseas in the future.

petervandijck 15y ago

It gives less security, yes, but it also makes hiring much easier.

pstack 15y ago

Employers can fire you at-will, without cause, in America. It is traditionally considered good practice for an employee to give an employer two weeks notice before quitting a job, so that they have time to try and fill your position. It is not the case the other way around. If your company decides they need to trim the ranks tomorrow, you may walk in at 9:00am and be told you are no longer needed and escorted out of the building by security with a box of your belongings at 9:05am. The only protections are that you can not be fired do to discrimination based on gender, age, religion, or ethnicity. In some states, you can not be fired over sexual orientation (but in about 30 of the 50 states, that is not protected and you can therefore be fired for being gay). The protections are rather meaningless, however. How are you going to prove that you were fired because you are too old or because you're a woman or because you aren't the right religion, if your employer says "no, we just fired her because she smelled really bad" or "we fired her for her poor work performance". Of course (other than protecting against discrimination), I'm not sure what the alternative is. If I'm writing the paychecks, I should be able to determine how many people I need in my company and when I no longer need them -- whether due to finances or simply not liking them. Why should I be forced to keep someone on the payroll for weeks or months beyond when I can afford them or be forced to deal with someone in the office for weeks or months after they have worn out their welcome? My employer is free to hire or fire me at will and I'm free to find another job. They're private entities with obligation to provide for me or look after my well-being. I know there are other differences, too. For example, in America, we consider vacation time to be something for professionals who have put in their dues while paid vacation seems to be issued to employees along with their office chair straight out of the gate in a lot of other countries. My mother is in her fifties and still has no paid vacation at her work. If she were to come visit me, she would have to take time off of work (meaning a big hit to the pay check for that month). Same goes for both of my siblings. On the other hand, a professional with fifteen or twenty years of experience and a college degree can earn ten days of vacation per year, where I work (though not immediately, you only accrue vacation time fast enough to get two weeks a year of vacation once you have worked at this company for at least seven years). On top of that, we have six or seven company holidays (New Years, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas). Again, I don't really have a problem with that, either. I mean, why should I get paid when I'm not working? If my employer wants to entice me to their company or keep me at their company and in high spirits by offering to pay me to take time away from work, then that's their decision and it's great. But I don't see a particular reason that they should be obligated to compensate me for time I'm not spending on them.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

DenisM 15y ago

I would not want to work in a place where it's hard to fire poor performers. My preference would be to make it easy to fire, but provide a sufficient safety net, so that people are not fearful of the temporary disruption. As it is now, firing someone for poor performance at one large American software company I worked for (WA state) takes 6 month. They have to be told they aren't doing well, then their every step is documented, and they are continuously told how to improve, and only after they fail to heed the warnings they get fired. People who steal or harass others get fired immediately, but otherwise it's a long slog to kick someone out. All this song and dance is done to protect against lawsuits. It's a drag on the business, and probably a deterrent to hiring.

arghnoname 15y ago
Giving people time to improve is nice. It's a balance. If someone could be a good performer but is going through some issues, etc, and with some time or a warning or some such thing, return to or become a good performer again, that's a win for everyone. Recruitment is expensive and when corporations can help their employers and their bottom line at the same time, this is a good thing. Unfortunately when you have these sort of blanket policies that are more necessary in large organizations, the guy in a temporary crisis and the person who got hired somehow but can't spell their name get the same treatment. I think the balance is to give enough time that good people who have slipped can get back on track, but not so much that it be too heavily abused by less capable employees who would probably ultimately be happier somewhere more in fitting with their ability.