‘You’re laid off — and you owe us’
July 21, 2009 by StaffPosted in: Uncategorized
Imagine this: A company tells some of its former employees, “We gave you too much severance. Please give the extra amount back.”
It really happened. And it wasn’t just any employer — it was Microsoft.
The software giant attempted to recoup some severance money from 25 recently fired workers it mistakenly overpaid.
The employees received a letter which said, “This letter is to inform you that an inadvertent administrative error occurred that resulted in an overpayment in severance pay by Microsoft. We ask that you repay the overpayment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience to you.”
There’s no word on the amount of the overpayments.
On second thought …
A scanned copy of such a letter first appeared on the Web site TechCrunch. After that — well, you know how things spread on the Web.
Shortly thereafter, Microsoft announced it had made a mistake.
“We should have handled this situation in a more thoughtful manner,” an e-mailed statement said. Microsoft “will not seek any payment from those individuals.”
Microsoft had laid off a total of 1,400 employees, the first of 5,000 planned layoffs.
As usual with these types of stories, Microsoft has refused to give any more details — so that’s all there is.
But, we’ll pose some questions anyway: Was it correct for Microsoft to ask for the overpayments back in the first place? Would it matter if the amounts were $10, $100 or $1,000? Let us know in the Comments Box below.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Yes it is. The severance pay is just that pay. Would you not expect the company to make corrections in case of overpayment if you were still employed?
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I think it does make sense for the company to correct the mistake and get the funds back. If the employee wasn’t given less than they should receive they would expect to be paid for those missing funds. I think Microsoft could have handled better instead of sending out a letter as they did, but they were right to expect the money back.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:05 am
My concern about asking employees to pay back the additional cash is the taxes that they paid on the full amount when they were originally paid. Is this taken into consideration?
And, by the way, the main reason I do not check that I want notification of followup comments is that, many times, as i read this Newsletter on the train going home, I see the many comments going back and forth and I wonder if anyone in HR actually does any work.
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 am
While Microsoft certainly has the right to ask for the money back, they should have weighed that against the bad press cost and let it go. MS has always been dumb and blind when it comes to good PR and it has cost them a lot over the years.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I have friends who work there! One in HR and one who was laid off. I might have to check in and see if the laid off employee got the letter and hope my HR friend didn’t write it.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:09 am
I taught middle school for the 1999-2000 school year and resigned in May 2000. I was of course paid for the summer months when school wasn’t in session, to round out a 12-month year. In 2008 I applied & was approved to substitute teach in the same county. When I never received a paycheck, I was told that the school system had overpaid me by $2100 and I would have to “sub” 27 days before I would receive any further compensation. I chose not to go back, and the school system never contacted me again about “what I owed” them!