They can fire you for health reasons, they just have to be very careful when doing so. Been there, done that. Pretty hard to sue when you have no proof except common sense.
> Yes. Just as you can quit, walk out, and be done.
What is the flip-side to at-will employment though? Without at-will employment, do employees become slaves that cannot quit their job? Or are there only a small list of "legal" reasons for you to quit your job.
I always see "well the employee can always leave at any time too," but is that really something that disappears in places without at-will employment?
> What is the flip-side to at-will employment though? Without at-will employment, do employees become slaves that cannot quit their job? Or are there only a small list of "legal" reasons for you to quit your job.
The following is true for a sizable part of Europe. The flip side(s!) are:
* I can't just walk out on a job, I have to give a 4-week notice (for any reason, though. It can be anything, from "I feel like I need a new challenge" to "I hate ever single one of you motherfuckers"), during which I'm expected to do my job more or less as usual. Everyone understands you're not as motivated, no one plans for major stuff to happen during someone's N-week notice.
* My employer has a small, but very open-ended list of reasons why he's allowed to fire me, which includes things like me underperforming (but he has to give proof that this actually happened -- i.e. he needs to have an actual evaluation process, has to warn me that I'm not performing as expected first and so on), shrinking clients base which means that they literally no longer need so many people and I drew the short stick and so on.
My employer is also required to give me a four-week notice, during which he has to pay me as usual, and he also has to pay for any vacation days I didn't take in this time (the idea being that I could have lounged in Belize instead of working my sorry ass at the office).
Furthermore, if I am being fired, my employer is also required to allow me to go to interviews during business hours (for obvious reasons).
Regulations vary from one country to another, but that's the gist of it. In general:
- Notices are typically 4 weeks for non-management positions and 6 weeks for management positions. The law around here allows these periods to be longer, but not shorter than this, and they're negotiated as part of the contract.
- However, they can be skipped by mutual agreement (i.e. if I want to leave right now and my employer doesn't have a problem with that, we sign an additional paper that says we both agree to leaving without a 4-week notice and I'm out).
- They don't apply for the duration of the test period at the beginning of an employment contract (if there is one). During that period (typically 3 months), both resignations and firings are effective immediately. I did it once, it' a very refreshing feeling :-).
I work for the European branch of a relatively small American company, which is how I've come to know all this. My colleagues from the US are mesmerized whenever they hear about these things.
In Costa Rica, which follows a similar system, you can also buyout your notice period, which I think is fair for all sides.
Basically, if your notice period is 1 month, you can opt to pay the company 1 month's salary instead of having to work that time. If a company wants you gone, they pay you the equivalent wages for the notice period you were required to provide.
I think it's fair because both sides have agreed that $X amount is a fair exchange for the employees services. If those services cannot be replaced with $X then that's really the company's problem for taking advantage of the worker.
This buyout is in addition to any other severance package the worker might be receiving.
Anyways, I think it's pretty nifty as it allows the flexibility of leaving immediately, but also puts in some structure into the situation.
Consider contract employment. You agree to work for me for x months. In exchange, I agree to pay you $y. The contract outlines reasons that I can fire you and reasons that you can quit. And, if either party violates the terms of the agreement, we can go to court.
Norway is standard 3 months notice. So most Norwegian developers would be unable to apply for e.g. a remote work position the US without first quitting their old job. No hedging your bets, which means that you're in effect trapped in the Norwegian labor market.
The flip side of this is that it's very difficult to get fired, even if you're not very competent.
In Europe, a month is typical for junior, professional jobs, with this increasing to three months for senior positions.
You can, of course, not turn up to work. But that might well make you "unreliable" if you ask for a reference later. But it's not a problem, since a new employer giving a three month notice period will expect you to be on one at present.
(The notice period during the first 6 or 12 months is often less, eg 2-4 weeks.)
In Europe, it is much higher than a month in many countries.
E.g. in Norway it is near impossible to give less than 3 months notice for permanent positions without providing additional compensation, no matter how junior the position, except for a typically 6 month trial period.
Before I'd moved to the UK, I'd never even seen an employment contract with less than 3 months.
In practice, shorter notice is often mutually agreed on with or without compensation when both sides agree it suits them, but it's very common to serve out the full 3 months.
This is true of my position in Germany as well, but from what I understand it rarely works out like that.
Unless you are leaving a company at a critical juncture they likely don't want to keep an unmotivated employer there for three months. I can mutually agree with my employer to leave early if necessary.
In Norway you can mutually agree to leave early, but the employer can generally not force you to leave to the extent that there have been cases where people have insisted on coming to work against the employers will because the saw it as problematic for their professional reputation if they were forced to leave. Generally courts would tend to be sympathetic to employee concerns in cases like that unless there are very compelling reasons to keep them out (e.g. lets say they were dismissed after a violent attack on another employee or after being found stealing secrets fro the employers).
When you make as much as you do, it's a huge waste of everyone's time for you to interview for roles that just can't go there. By stating your compensation up front, you effectively make the recruiter your negotiator before you ever interview. You're getting them to get the company to agree to possibly paying you that much, assuming you meet some bar in their head that's worth it.
More specifically to your next move, your base salary just won't have a lot of room to grow. So you have some options.
-become a consultant. Many are referencing Patrick's blog (kalzumeus.com), which is a great way to bump up your dollars.
-transform a recently funded startup that goes public. They'll throw money at you to build their team, then hopefully the stock makes you rich.
-Even outside the big 6 (Uber? Really?), at your level in your job most larger companies should be rewarding heavily in stock and performance bonuses. Take the time with the recruiter to truly understand what the total compensation strategy is. What is the vesting schedule for the initial reward? What about stock given as bonuses or for promotions? What % of possible bonus does the average employee actually receive?
-create the next big tech and run with it. AUTOMATE ALL THE THINGS. I hear there's money in that.
I think the OP means they can't legally access this information other than by getting you or your previous employer to disclose it.
Most large companies won't give out your past salary information, so if they don't force you to provide proof, it's not very likely they will be able to verify it.
>via background checks
Background checks are normally done via a 3rd party background check company, and they don't have access to this kind of data.
When I was hired by Merrill Lynch, in Dublin, they asked for my bank statements for the last ten years in order to verify that I was indeed making what I said. (The only annoying thing was that I had to scan 75 pages... boooring.)
In the US, this is a legal minefield and when a potential employer calls a past employer for references, that past employer will very often not reveal anything more than "We can confirm that this person was employed by us from date1 to date2" and that's it.
They will not disclose your salary, what you did, your organization, who you reported to and who reported to you, your performance reviews and anything else of that nature because all of this extra information is grounds for you to sue them later if you don't get the job you're currently applying to.
The only way The Work Number has access to your salary information is if your employer has given it to them. If your employer is willing to give that out then yes a hiring company can verify your salary.
We are back to my original point that the only way a hiring company can verify salary data is by asking your employer (or having 3rd party ask for them) or forcing you to verify it.
Why is it that "What are you making are your current job, we will verify it." is acceptable but "What was this companies net revenue last quarter" is not. The game is so clearly rigged.
The company bears far less risk than the employee. The company can easily fire you if it doesn't work out, whereas most employees can't suddenly leave a job that treats them badly.
So employees can ask lots of questions about company financial health, as part of trying to reduce the far larger risk they are taking.
Meanwhile, a company doesn't need to know your salary history to make an informed opinion of whether they want to hire you and for what amount of pay.
That's true but far more than 1% of employees are employed by publicly traded companies. Most of the 27 million businesses have no employees at all--there are only around 5 million businesses with employees.
Amazon, and any other major company, has created a salary range for any role. As someone who has hired for many of these companies, I can tell you:
Sharing your compensation is taboo, but do it anyway. So long as you do it honestly and completely. Talking about only salary in a company that rewards heavily in stock is not useful.
There is negotiation room. However, playing the game of show me your hand first is just plain annoying. Why should a company pay you more than is standard in your role? Are you leaving bonus/stock money on the table to come there? Relocating? Losing money on a lease? Tuition? Costs covered by your current employer or another offer (ie housing, transportation, childcare, etc)?
It's a myth that all companies are out to lowball you. The more successful a company is, the more likely it is that they've realized internal equity is at least as (if not more so) important than being competitive in the market.
Go see twitter #talkpay. A lot of great data points were shared there.
