Should I Negotiate My Own Severance Package?

Negotiate Severance Package: Don’t Go it Alone!

As an employee, if you elect to negotiate your own severance pay without involving an experienced employment lawyer, it can severely limit the severance pay amount you may recover from your employer resulting from a wrongful dismissal. For example, I recently helped an employee who worked for her former employer for less than 1 year as a senior manager and was 50 years of age when her employment was terminated without cause. Before calling my employment law firm, she attempted to negotiate her severance package alone by offering to settle with her employer for 1 month of severance pay (which she said was based on her online research on various websites).

Little did she know that, in reality, there was a strong case to be made for us to obtain a severance package that far exceeded her expectations. In fact, when we probed deeply into her employment history, we realized that she had a valid case of inducement, having left a previous employer where she worked for nearly 9 years to join the new company, before she was quickly let go after less than 1 year. It was only after our employment law consultation that we were able to explain her legal rights and options, which enabled us to negotiate a severance package of 10 months of severance compensation.

Obviously, this is a significant difference – with a lot more compensation at stake. While we were able to help eventually increase the original severance package offer, the severance package negotiations were hamstrung by her the settlement offer she made before our involvement, which the employer used as leverage to dig in its heels and stubbornly resists providing all of the employee’s entitlements. This is mainly because the employer assumed the employee would not seriously challenge the employer by starting a wrongful dismissal lawsuit, since she was willing to accept far less severance pay than she would otherwise have been entitled to receive.

Why did the employee hurt her own case by negotiating independently with her employer? The answer is simple: Without the assistance of an experienced employment lawyer, employees are at a significant disadvantage relative to their employer, who is almost always represented by their own employment lawyer with one clear goal in mind: reduce how much severance compensation the employer provides you even though it terminated your employment without cause.

This is why, for wrongfully terminated employees, we always recommend getting the assistance of an experienced employment lawyer. While there may be an upfront cost (consultation fee), the expense is far less than what the employment lawyer can ultimately recover in a severance package. In some ways, it should be seen as a financial investment. Unfortunately, many employees attempt to independently negotiate their severance package, which nearly always ends up poorly for them.

As an employment law firm, we regularly assist employees negotiate a far better severance packages. Hiring an employment lawyer means you will have an experienced advocate on your corner working hard to obtain the compensation you deserve – and leave no money on the table.

How Employment Lawyers Assist with Wrongful Terminations

An employment lawyer can assist a wrongfully terminated employee in many ways. First, is by providing a legal consultation to help you understand your legal rights, options, and to arm you with enough information to make a decision for yourself no how you wish to handle your wrongful termination. Most importantly, an experienced employment lawyer can negotiate on your behalf to help ensure that you are provided with all of the compensation (money) that your employer owes you under Ontario employment law, such as base salary, bonus pay, health benefits and pension plan contributions.