An Unfair Termination Story
Hi Gilbert,
Just wanna share my story with you. Anyway, please keep my name and email anonymous should you want to relate to your readers.
Sometime in July this year, one of my ex-colleague left and I volunteered to my direct manager (let’s call him Mr. A) to take over his duties – on top of my own. This was in the hope that I can have a better chance to do more and perform better for the end of year appraisal.
In September, another of my ex-colleague left, Mr. A told me to take over her duties and to slowly oversee and hand over the duties to the two new staff hired. In between this period, Mr. A also gave me a project assignment (that has been left undone for 8 years and nobody in the department wants to do it) to clear, and I managed to finish it by early October.
So in Mid-October, I had a talk with Mr. A privately one day, I requested to him for an immediate pay increment in view of the many duties I’m handling at the moment, or alternatively to give me an indication of the kind of bonus pay out at the end of the year end appraisal.
I also had a brief chat with Mr. A that I am having financial problems due to my elder brother being jobless and my father has been going in/out of the hospital many times this year. Mr. A told me what amount I’m looking for and I gave him a 25% increment figure. (To clear the fact here, I’m not earning much at all, 25% is really a nominal sum).
Mr. A told me that he needs to speak with the General Manager (Let’s call him Mr. B) about this matter and will get back to me two weeks later. When I approached Mr. A on the outcome, he related to me an immediate increment is not possible and even then, at the end of the year appraisal, this amount also cannot be promised. I accepted the decision thereafter.
One week later, Mr. A called me in to his room on a Friday at 5.30pm and told me I am terminated immediately -reason being the management feels that my loyalty to the company is in serious doubt. They compensated me one month notice in lieu and asked that I leave with immediate effect (SHOCKING!)
Mr. B then sent out an email to the rest of the staff lamenting about my case, painting a picture that I am greedy and that I demanded for something from the sky when my performance is only deemed “average”. I totally disagreed with his assessment of me and feel extremely disappointed with his actions. I have personally put in a lot of effort throughout my 3.5 years in the company and to be graded only “average” in performance is such a let down.
Worse still, from start to end of the incident, I have never once spoken a single word to Mr. B, feeling totally betrayed by this scandalous decision. Mr. B even lamented in the email that I have pleaded to stay on for 3 months to find a job and that the company is right to reject my plea.
A story to share with everyone – there are such things happening in Singapore now.
Regards,
Mr. Anonymous
Gilbert: – Should the victim complained to MOM about his unfair dismissal? Please email me your opinion at gilbert@transitioning.org . Thanks.
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Gilbert
Just my 0.02, but it sounds like it may be a little difficult to succeed with a complaint to MOM. For one thing, it would be difficult to show proof of an unfair termination (especially in this instance, where the employee was given immediate termination without having to serve the notice period). If the appraisal ratings are indeed accurate, the company could just rely on those to justify the termination.
Have heard of similar instances and experienced it once myself. It isn’t pleasant. It just might not be a fight worth fighting. Energy will probably be better spent just moving onto to another company which can appreciate that employee better.
First thing to note here is, there’s no proper assessment criteria on what represents performance. Working longer hours, handling more projects in the eyes of the employee might not translate equally to what the employer might think.
As such, I think the case of the employee winning is slim.
The lesson here is to ascertain what compensation there’s going to be, before taking on such projects. This is exceptionally critical in companies where there’s no clear appraisal system.
Second lesson to learn is one of negotiation. Never negotiate if you have no alternatives. In this case, it seems that your job can be easily replaceable, hence you don’t really have any bargaining chip.
In this case, the employee might not realise but there’s a positive side to the dismissal. You have now left a company where there’s no growth prospect.