What is employment at will?

Traditionally, employers have had the right to discharge most employees "at will." They could fire an employee "for good cause, bad cause or no cause at all." Conversely, employees have traditionally had the right to terminate their employment at any time for any reason.

However, the following three categories of employees cannot be fired at will:

• union employees;
• public employees; and
• employees with written contracts.

Otherwise, employers generally still have the right to fire at-will employees. But some restrictions on that freedom have evolved.

A separation from employment occurs when an employee leaves the company. Separations from employment can be broken into two types based on who made the decision to leave --the employee or the employer.

When the employer makes the decision for the employee to leave the company, the separation is referred to as involuntary. An involuntary termination originates from one of the following generalized reasons:

• Disciplinary action. The behavior or the work performance of the employee is below standard or unacceptable to the employer.
• Reduction in force or layoff. The employer is eliminating one or more positions and the incumbents that hold those position or who have the least seniority in order to reduce expenses, cease operations or to reposition resources internally.
• Employment-at-will discharge. There may be situations where an employee's job is eliminated for reasons other than those cited above. When this occurs, an employer should be very sure that employment-at-will provisions and status are intact.

Reprinted with permission. © CCH