That stinks. Sorry you’re having to deal with this challenge.
I had read that employees can quit and apply for unemployment if they “believed” doing their job put them at risk for covid.
Is that not the case? They still need to be furloughed in order to claim unemployment?
“””””Yet now he can literally make more sitting at home doing nothing.”””””””””””
Not true. I was an employer in the construction business for 40 years.
Call him back to work. If he doesn’t show up then contact the Unemployment Office and tell them he refused work. He will lose his benefits immediately.
Make sure you remind all of your people of that law.
Just a bit of drama there. No one believes that government handout will last long enough to give up a job over.
That’s the employee you should fire anyway... useless when you need them most.
You mean you as an employer don’t know that when you tell him to return, that if he doesn’t return he loses his unemployment benefits?
Very true. And your story can be repeated by millions of other small employers across the nation. The $600 per week “bonus” is going to make being unemployed very STICKY. It’s going to be hard to get a lot of employees to return to work until the bonus money pipeline stops flowing money.
1. You have a staff of X people.
2. Due to a downturn related to this COVID-19 fiasco, you have to lay off some number of them.
3. Because the Federal $600/week unemployment payments to the people you laid off are coming on top of the regular unemployment benefits offered in your state, the people you laid off are actually getting paid more every week than the ones who are still working.
4. Nobody is refusing to show up for work and trying to collect unemployment. It's just that ones you laid of with the best of intentions are making out better than the ones who are still working.
If this is the case, then here's how I would approach the situation if I was in your shoes:
Suppose your layoffs last for six weeks. Let's also suppose that you had 10 employees, and you had to lay off 5 of them. The five unemployed workers are getting their regular unemployment benefits, plus $600 per week from the Federal government.
A. If the layoffs last for six weeks, then each employee has received $3,600 "extra" money above and beyond their normal unemployment benefits.
B. Consider this money a "pre-paid bonus" of $3,600 for each of those employees. It cost you nothing to pay it (other than your share of the Federal tax obligation, of course).
C. When your company recovers to the point where you can pay bonuses to your staff, pay $0 to the five unemployed ones.
D. Double the $3,600 "bonus" they received to $7,200. That is the amount I would look to pay to the ones who worked through all this. That's a total of $36,000. You may not be able to afford it for a while, but keep this recorded as a running total to pay them over time as circumstances allow it.
E. You can pay them directly as bonuses, or figure out some way to compensate them in other ways toward that $7,200 goal ... maybe a company-paid "work trip" that is basically a vacation, or a nice dinner out with their families on the company's dime.
F. If any of the remaining employees leave the company before they get paid their $7,200 "future bonus," then you owe them nothing.
G. Remember who stuck with you through all of this when it comes time to promote your staff.
H. Don't tell the employees what you're doing. Just do it quietly.
This is a real problem. I work for a dentist and we have been closed since March 20th. We will reopen, God willing, on May 18th. When this is all said and done, after taxes, I will have pocketed an extra $4,000 over and above my monthly pay. It is ridiculous. I am already thinking of ways to distribute the “windfall” (an unnecessary burden upon taxpayers) back into the economy via small business or charity.