It's a strange-sounding term, involuntary termination. It seems rather redundant. Looking at the big picture, what percentage of people or things being terminated have actually volunteered for it?
So, what does it mean? Simply put, to be involuntarily terminated is to be let go from your job. This can happen when the boss stands up and shouts, "You're fired!" and points to the door. However, much more often and less dramatically, it also includes layoffs where staff is cut for budgetary reasons and even constructive dismissals. Your employer essentially changes the nature of your working environment or compensation in such a fundamental way that you have effectively been terminated.
Voluntary termination
It is never pleasant to lose your job unexpectedly. We invest a great deal of our time and energy, and often even our identities, into our jobs. Being fired takes an emotional – as well as a financial – toll on people.
It is far better to leave a job on your own terms. These fall into the category of 'voluntary terminations.' In this case, termination is defined as an end to something. Your employment with that organization comes to an end.
Voluntary terminations include resigning your job because you have found another opportunity elsewhere. You can do this in a classy way with a professional letter of resignation.
Another voluntary termination is when you step down because the time has come to retire from your job. How to write a retirement letter.
Sometimes companies looking to reduce staff will offer buy-out packages for employees to walk away voluntarily.
Involuntary termination
While being fired from a job can be traumatic, involuntary termination can come with certain benefits over choosing to leave. If you quit your job, you walk away with nothing but whatever you have earned up to that point. On the other hand, involuntary termination is typically accompanied by a severance package to help ease the blow. This is often a lump sum of money and sometimes the continuation of benefits for a certain period of time.
The severance package is to help the terminated staff member have some time to transition to new employment, and it is to provide the company with some protection against being sued. Departing workers usually have to sign an agreement saying that they will not take the company to court over the loss of their employment in order to receive the complete severance package.
If no sufficient severance offered, non-unionized workers can sue their employers for wrongful dismissal. If the courts find that the company has mistreated the staff member, they can not only award compensation for the loss of revenue but also impose punitive fees for the treatment of the worker.
This can be considerably costly for the company and bad for their reputation and employer brand as a workplace of choice. Most organizations are very sensitive to this scenario and try to avoid it at all costs.
Types of involuntary termination
There can be a big difference in outcomes for the worker depending on how – or why – they are terminated. For example, while it is still a job loss, a layoff does not come with any stigma or repercussions that a firing might.
Companies lay off staff for many reasons, and usually, these are not the fault of the affected employees. An organization experiencing hard times may find that it can no longer afford the size of the workforce it built up while business was booming.
Other times, management may decide to shut down an unprofitable department or take the company in a new direction. This can result in many jobs being made redundant under the new strategy. Staff who are let go under these circumstances should have no difficulty explaining the job loss to future employers. They were loyal, hard-working contributors until the company started losing money and decided to shut down the division in question.
Constructive dismissal is when an employer does not tell an employee that they have been let go, but they change their employment situation so fundamentally that it is as though the staff member has been fired. The team member can then resign and claim that they have been wrongfully terminated in court. If the worker has been treated unfairly, the judge can be very sympathetic. Examples include an employer transferring a staff member to a location hundreds of kilometres away, drastically reducing their pay, or radically demoting them.
Being fired 'for cause', however, can have more dire impacts on a worker's future prospects—the reason being that this form of termination is less so about business and more personal. The problem has nothing to do with the economy or the project plan but with the employee. When people are fired for cause, it is due to an issue with their behaviour or their competence. They have failed to deliver their work or violated company policy.
Staff members who are dishonest or stealing from their employer, routinely late, unable to accomplish the tasks for which they were hired, or insubordinate or rude to their coworkers can be terminated for cause.
Because employees' work ethic and professionalism are choices, many companies count these terminations as voluntary on the staff member's part. This can impact how much severance they are offered. A company that has to fire a dishonest or incompetent employee may not feel that they owe them anything on their way out the door.
The courts sometimes see it that way as well. A judge will have much more sympathy for an employee who was let go through no fault of their own than they might for a worker whose own behaviour cost them their job.
Finding a new job after being fired
Compounding the loss of income and severance, being fired for cause can also make finding your next job more challenging. You won't want to focus on that opportunity and how it ended on bad terms when you are trying to impress potential employers.
One strategy can be to switch to a functional resume. Unlike the traditional chronological resume, which lists your work experience in reverse chronological order, a functional resume focuses on your skills and abilities to do the job you are applying for.
You open with a summary of your skills and credentials for the job at hand, and then you list the places you have worked in order of their relevance rather than timing, often without dates.
This allows you to impress hiring managers with your experience and abilities before getting to the dreaded "So, why did you leave your last job?" interview question.
And then, of course, don't use the manager who fired you as one of your references for future roles. Here's how to pick your professional references.
