severance payment, based on current salary?

[forumuser10]

I have an employee who went down to part time employment 3 months ago. He have worked for our company little more than 3 years.

I might have to let him go next month. What do I need to pay him in severance payment?

Amount should be based on current salary (which is about half of his prior salary when he worked full time), right?

[blackcab]

Over 3 years = 180 days pay. Plus you have to give them 30 days notice or pay an additional 30 days pay.

You could try and get away with paying the current monthly rate. If the employee goes to the labour office (they have nothing to lose in doing so) you might be encouraged to pay the average monthly rate over the last 12 months.

[talayjay]

First question is did your employee request to transfer to part time or not? it will make a difference if a labour act negotiator becomes involved, particularly given it was only 3 months ago. Second (and more important) question, irrespective of your answer to question 1, do you want to do the 'right' thing?

I hope you answer N/A and YES.

[forumuser10]

First question is did your employee request to transfer to part time or not? it will make a difference if a labour act negotiator becomes involved, particularly given it was only 3 months ago. Second (and more important) question, irrespective of your answer to question 1, do you want to do the 'right' thing?

I hope you answer N/A and YES.

Not sure what you mean by N/A, as in, I should not answer that question? But no, we had very little business, so we needed to cut down on employment hours.

Yes, I intend to follow the rules, and I am in no way trying to rip my employee off if that is what you are hinting at? But at the same time, I don't run a business lose money, and do charity work.

[forumuser10]

Over 3 years = 180 days pay. Plus you have to give them 30 days notice or pay an additional 30 days pay.

You could try and get away with paying the current monthly rate. If the employee goes to the labour office (they have nothing to lose in doing so) you might be encouraged to pay the average monthly rate over the last 12 months.

Why do you think so, that I might be encouraged to do so (pay average of the last 12 mont)?

Not saying you are wrong, just curious what you base your assumption on, any experience with a similar case?

[OneZero]

If the employee did not request to / voluntarily go on part time, and I were the labor office, I would view any effort by you to reduce severance pay below what is both legally & morally correct. In that case, I would certainly encourage the employee to file a complaint against you with the labor dept. How about you just voluntarily doing the right thing based upon whether or not the employee requested part time work..

[forumuser10]

If the employee did not request to / voluntarily go on part time, and I were the labor office, I would view any effort by you to reduce severance pay below what is both legally & morally correct. In that case, I would certainly encourage the employee to file a complaint against you with the labor dept. How about you just voluntarily doing the right thing based upon whether or not the employee requested part time work..

I do not intend to try to rip my employee off, why are you guys so aggressive? I am simply asking a simple neutral question here.

You say severance payment below what is "legally and morally correct", do you have any actual knowledge about this? And most importantly, in order to view my case as severance payment below legally correct, you would have to know what my employee have in salary. To ease your worries, my employee earns more as a part time worker, than the majority of thais do as a full time worker.

I assume you know nothing about this.

[OneZero]

Well it sounds like you want to do right by the employee rather that rip him off somehow. So sorry if I jumped to conclusions. I'd suggest you contact the labor Dept for an official answer.

[blackcab]

Over 3 years = 180 days pay. Plus you have to give them 30 days notice or pay an additional 30 days pay.

You could try and get away with paying the current monthly rate. If the employee goes to the labour office (they have nothing to lose in doing so) you might be encouraged to pay the average monthly rate over the last 12 months.

Why do you think so, that I might be encouraged to do so (pay average of the last 12 mont)?

Not saying you are wrong, just curious what you base your assumption on, any experience with a similar case?

I don't have experience with a similar case, however I have experience with employees going to the Labour Board. The company I previously worked for lost every case, even though we truly believed we had done the right thing. On each occasion we were encouraged by the mediator to offer more. We did, and the former employee rejected the offer.

As I said, you can pay them the least amount possible and see what comes of it.

Another option is to offer them a little bit more to sign a resignation form. Once they sign that, you are covered.

[metisdead]

Off topic posts have been removed.

[talayjay]

I was not being or intending to be aggressive in the slightest, but looking at your previous topics nothing more needs to be said about your attitude to employees.

Good luck and I hope you will find the middle way in life...

[Don Mega]

This is a subject close to me as Iam currently looking to downsize my hours from fulltime to part time.

I would love to know the answer to this in regards to redundancy payouts.

[forumuser10]

Over 3 years = 180 days pay. Plus you have to give them 30 days notice or pay an additional 30 days pay.

You could try and get away with paying the current monthly rate. If the employee goes to the labour office (they have nothing to lose in doing so) you might be encouraged to pay the average monthly rate over the last 12 months.

Why do you think so, that I might be encouraged to do so (pay average of the last 12 mont)?

Not saying you are wrong, just curious what you base your assumption on, any experience with a similar case?

I don't have experience with a similar case, however I have experience with employees going to the Labour Board. The company I previously worked for lost every case, even though we truly believed we had done the right thing. On each occasion we were encouraged by the mediator to offer more. We did, and the former employee rejected the offer.

As I said, you can pay them the least amount possible and see what comes of it.

Another option is to offer them a little bit more to sign a resignation form. Once they sign that, you are covered.

Interesting, thank you for your input. So after you offered the employee more, and he still rejected, what happened?

[blackcab]

The case was put in front of the Labour Board and the company was ordered to pay the maximum possible, plus an amount of interest. The figure was well over 100,000 baht.

This was for an employee that could not do their job properly and who had multiple, well documented disciplinaries in a six month period including two for gross misconduct.

I have worked for large businesses in the West where I spent large amounts of time dealing with grievances, investigations, disciplinaries and appeals so I have a good working knowledge of how to put together the relevant paperwork to an acceptable standard.

In a nutshell, none of it was taken into consideration.

[forumuser10]

wow, that sounds absolutely horrible. With a misbehaving employee with gross misconduct, and he still got the Labour Board on his side??

I heard, but not sure if that is true, that if you get the employee to sign that he understands the misconduct, and agree to better himself, and he still fail, employees are not entitled to any severance pay whatsoever when firing him/her.

[harrry]

I would consider reducing a person's hours is dismissal at that time and the employee would be due to benifits at that date. He was a full time employee so your part time employment is new employment.

[blackcab]

wow, that sounds absolutely horrible. With a misbehaving employee with gross misconduct, and he still got the Labour Board on his side??

I heard, but not sure if that is true, that if you get the employee to sign that he understands the misconduct, and agree to better himself, and he still fail, employees are not entitled to any severance pay whatsoever when firing him/her.

The Labour Board told us that to dismiss an employee with no comeback from them we had to give the employee 3 documented disciplinaries for the same reason/offence.

In our case, most of the disciplinaries were for legitimate, but different, reasons (such as him losing the plot in front of other staff and telling the General Manager to f-off because he was doing things his way, not the way he had been instructed, and that was that).

At the end of the day you just have to learn from it and move on. The guy was hired because he had something extra; in his case it turned out to be a little too much.

The only other two ways I know are if the employee signs a resignation letter, or if they quit and don't turn up for 3 days.

[singa-traz]

Let's make it short, you are more than likely to lose in labour court, no matter how well documented you think your case is.

You can decide when to pay ... now or later (with interest)?

[forumuser10]

I would consider reducing a person's hours is dismissal at that time and the employee would be due to benifits at that date. He was a full time employee so your part time employment is new employment.

Are you sure about this? That a full time employee, for some reason, will be transferred to a part time position, automatically is viewed as a new employment? Or is that just an assumption?

[forumuser10]

wow, that sounds absolutely horrible. With a misbehaving employee with gross misconduct, and he still got the Labour Board on his side??

I heard, but not sure if that is true, that if you get the employee to sign that he understands the misconduct, and agree to better himself, and he still fail, employees are not entitled to any severance pay whatsoever when firing him/her.

The Labour Board told us that to dismiss an employee with no comeback from them we had to give the employee 3 documented disciplinaries for the same reason/offence.

In our case, most of the disciplinaries were for legitimate, but different, reasons (such as him losing the plot in front of other staff and telling the General Manager to f-off because he was doing things his way, not the way he had been instructed, and that was that).

At the end of the day you just have to learn from it and move on. The guy was hired because he had something extra; in his case it turned out to be a little too much.

The only other two ways I know are if the employee signs a resignation letter, or if they quit and don't turn up for 3 days.

Yes, this is what I have heard as well. But did not hear it had to be 3 of the same reasons? So an employee can pretty much do whatever, as long as he did not receive 3 of the same documented disciplinaries. That is kinda crazy.

Yeah, sometimes when the guys know they have something valuable, they become difficult to employe.

[blackcab]

Yes, I thought it was extremely unrealistic. I talked to Thai business owners about this and their consensus was they would have made him lose face in front of other staff and he would have walked.

Cost would equal zero.

[Don Mega]

I would consider reducing a person's hours is dismissal at that time and the employee would be due to benifits at that date. He was a full time employee so your part time employment is new employment.

Are you sure about this? That a full time employee, for some reason, will be transferred to a part time position, automatically is viewed as a new employment? Or is that just an assumption?

I asked to go from full time to part time.

Was told A new work contract would have to be drawn up to update new work hours/salary and in the event of a redundancy it would be calculated on the new salary.

[forumuser10]

Yes, I thought it was extremely unrealistic. I talked to Thai business owners about this and their consensus was they would have made him lose face in front of other staff and he would have walked.

Cost would equal zero.

Yeah, but that I think is a little cynic, I would want to do that.

[forumuser10]

I would consider reducing a person's hours is dismissal at that time and the employee would be due to benifits at that date. He was a full time employee so your part time employment is new employment.

Are you sure about this? That a full time employee, for some reason, will be transferred to a part time position, automatically is viewed as a new employment? Or is that just an assumption?

I asked to go from full time to part time.

Was told A new work contract would have to be drawn up to update new work hours/salary and in the event of a redundancy it would be calculated on the new salary.

Interesting, thank you for your input.

[OneZero]

Note that Don Mega asked to go from full time to part time. If your employee did not ask to do so I believe he would be justified to request labor dept assistance if he felt he was not treated fairly. Now that you have a mixed bag of opinions, why not just ask the labor dept for an official answer.

[forumuser10]

Note that Don Mega asked to go from full time to part time. If your employee did not ask to do so I believe he would be justified to request labor dept assistance if he felt he was not treated fairly. Now that you have a mixed bag of opinions, why not just ask the labor dept for an official answer.

Yes, I noticed that, and yes, its probably different from my case.

And to correct myself in an earlier reply, I wanted to say "Yeah, but that I think is a little cynic, I would NOT want to do that." I forgot the word not.