Has anyone negotiated a severance package where they were the first to bring it up to HR or their boss? Like hypothetically ‘Hey I have a feeling you’ve been wanting me to quit, so how about we settle on a severance package?’.
I would appreciate insight if anyone has been in a similar situation before. Thanks 🙂
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Unless you’re independently wealthy or planning to leave the country anyway, find another job before you leave this one. It’s far more difficult to find a new job when you’re jobless than when you have a job.
>so how about we settle on a severance package?
This would be career suicide at your current job, so only ask this if you plan on burning bridges.
Wait for them to make the first move — you just seem desperate otherwise.
The only time I’ve negotiated a settlement is when they wanted me to leave. Asking to be paid money to leave when they don’t want you to leave is not going to go well for you.
The reason they would pay you money to leave is to convince you to leave. If you come onto them that you want to leave there is no convincing to be done and they won’t offer you money.
Whoever approaches the subject first is in the weaker position. So let that be your employer.
Remember. Redundancy is only available to those that don’t want it. Never to those that do.
Even “voluntary redundancy” is selective in my experience..
Is that normal?
I mean, I got severance (based on accumulated years of service) when being laid off due to COVID-19 after training up my replacements in India; but I haven’t heard about people being rewarded for quitting of their own volition?
If your company is wants to make you redundant, they’ll approach you about it.
From a business point of view, it doesn’t seem to make sense to reward people who throw a spanner into their delicate machinery. Otherwise *all* of the employees will be doing it, at every company they go to.
Don’t ask. It can be an indication of your unwillingness to work and could backfire in the future (with the same company)
I wish companies would proactively offer severance money to underperformers rather than pushing them out and breaking their spirits as they do so. But as people are saying, this isn’t how things work. If you sense that they want you to quit, they’re hoping that you’ll quit of your own accord.
Does your company have a rulebook? If so, severance terms and conditions might be laid out there. (I worked a small uni, which had this.)
I noticed that everyone is recommending not approaching first, which is probably correct. Strangely, the labor office had recommended that I ask my boss for severance pay. I think one government dumbass even told me to talk to my boss’s lawyer!