So you’ve been laid off and the severance your company offered you doesn’t seem right. When understanding your entitlements, make sure you’re accounting for these often-overlooked considerations:
Be prepared to go to court.
- The mechanism by which you would enforce your additional entitlements is through the Courts. A lawyer is needed to write a statement of claim or advance the matter through to litigation.
Understand the nuance between provincially or federally regulated employment.
- Your rights to further pay, how much additional pay you may be entitled to, and additional remedies like reinstatement are heavily dependent on this distinction.
Know that the employer has no reason to accept your counter offer and you run the risk of worsening your severance pay.
- In Ontario, each offer voids the preceding offer and accordingly, the employer could then pay you only ESA (Employment Standards Act) minimums and withhold the remainder of its first offer because the employer now knows you won’t accept that amount.
Make sure you’re not leaving any value on the table
- Don’t miss important claims like: unvested equity compensation, the foregone value of defined benefit pension plans, bonus earned but not yet paid, or losses under supplemental income retirement plans can often be equal to or greater than the remaining value of the claim.
Be weary of online calculators
- These calculators are marketing tools. Their results may be inflated to attract your business. They don’t typically have any function to consider the structure of particular offers which can add material value.
Questions? Contact us for a free consultation and excellent advice.