Written job descriptions are good and bad. As far as unemployment cases are concerned, if an employee is given a position other than their original job description they can quit and file for unemployment and win.
Bad performance and violation of company safety rules, production expectations and refusal to follow directives are good solid and valid reasons to release employees. However, there should be a record of such actions which should include any good points also. If not, you will be charged with keeping a “Black-Book” on the employee and that can get you into deep poo-poo.
If there was no written job description and they quit they cannot file for unemployment since there was no specific job description upon employment.
I’m not addressing firings, only the fact that an employee becomes disgruntled and simply quits.
There are many other factors that come into play but they are workplace dangers, illegal procedures....etc. that can get an employer into “hot water” with both the legal system and the civil courts.
I live (and own a 35 year old business in Texas) and have never lost an unemployment case due to some employee quitting and then filing for unemployment.
Some states are very liberal in granting unemployment while others (like Texas) use reasonable judgement in doing so.
In the case of this employee, you should have fired her due to her actions...particularly in the decrease of productive work and the hostility she showed toward management.
I agree but it ended up being a rather difficult situation to prove. We had to start moving and training some else to do parts of her job in light of and in anticipation of her verbal resignation. She then made the claim this was in “retaliation” for complaining about her working conditions and that her job description and work not being the one she thought she was hire for (even though she had signed an acknowledgement of the very same) and although we did everything we could reasonably do to mitigate this, i.e. offering her a more flexible work schedule to accommodate her long commute and child care issues, even offering to let her work from home some days. During the unemployment telephone hearing, she completely denied that she had ever told us of her intentions to quit after finding another job, claimed that she had never said this and since she had only said this verbally and never put it into writing and strung us along for months, we were pretty much screwed. PA is very liberal in granting unemployment. All the burden falls to the employer and even when you have proof of a termination for cause or a voluntary resignation, more times than not they will rule in favor of the employee.