Personnel Planners, Inc.

If the employee was working to the best of their ability then the employee was terminated through no fault of their own and benefits will be allowed.

Failure to meet performance expectations by itself is not a reason for denying benefits . An employer cannot win a pure poor performance case. Poor performance is when an employee is terminated due to no deliberate fault of their own making; the employee was working to the best of their ability. Please note: employers commonly give poor performance as the reason for a discharge when they really mean misconduct. Poor performance means that the employee didn’t do anything wrong. Misconduct means the employee should have known and done better. Mislabeling terminations is perhaps the most common error that employers make when separating employees. Focus instead on what happened at the time of separation and let the unemployment office judge whether it was poor performance or misconduct!

While it is best to follow company protocol when disciplining employees, the unemployment system does not determine eligibility for unemployment benefits based solely on the employer’s policy. The unemployment system could find the policy is unreasonable. Or they could determine that the individual should be denied benefits under the misconduct standard even when the disciplinary protocols of the employer’s handbook were not followed.

An individual is ineligible for benefits for weeks in which he or she has left work voluntarily without good cause attributable to the employer.

In most states, the standard for denying unemployment benefits in a discharge case is misconduct. In Illinois misconduct is defined as “the deliberate and willful violation of a reasonable rule or policy of the employing unit, governing the individual’s behavior in performance of his work, provided such violation has harmed the employing unit or other employees or has been repeated by the individual despite a warning or other explicit instruction from the employing unit.”

Many case of poor attendance will lead to denial of benefits. However the unemployment system focuses primarily on the final event that lead to termination. For example, if the employee called off of work because of illness, the judge at an unemployment hearing will most likely rule that the claimant’s actions were not willful and deliberate and therefore not misconduct. Of course, employees may claim to be ill when they are not and if the employer can prove that the claimant is lying, the judge will not rule in the employee’s favor. After suspending employees for absenteeism, employers should consider requiring doctors’ notes for further absences.

The unemployment system is a fault system and being laid off is not the claimant’s fault. In fact the intention of the unemployment system is to provide benefits when people have been laid off.

When an employee is not earning wages through no fault of their own, the employee can collect benefits. Even when an employee is active in the employer’s system, if there are no earnings because of a seasonal layoff, the employee is eligible for unemployment benefits. An exception would be certain workers, especially teachers and athletes, between academic semesters or sport seasons.

The general rule is that when someone voluntarily quits, the individual is unable to collect benefits. However, if the working conditions are not what as they were agreed upon at the time of hire or if they become hostile, causing the claimant to quit, the employer is viewed as responsible. The unemployment system views this as a separation attributable to the employer, therefore benefits would be awarded.

Some states have a special medical exemption that allows an individual to collect benefits but holds the employer as not chargeable since the physician has placed the claimant in a situation where the claimant is unable to return to work.

When an employee’s hours have been substantially reduced, the employee may be entitled to partial unemployment benefits.

The idea here is an employee has a right to get upset when delivered with upsetting news, especially in a private office. An angry reaction is not always willful or deliberate and not necessarily misconduct.

Some actions are inherently wrong and no warning is needed for a discharge that would result in denial of unemployment benefits. Examples might include, swearing at your supervisor, making racial remarks at work, intentionally starting a fight at work, etc.

When an employee is caught sleeping on the job, the employer should consider if the employee intentionally fell asleep. Many judges will forgive falling asleep at one’s desk if the claimant was sick or was working very long hours. The logic here is that the employee did not fall asleep willfully and deliberately. However, if an employee shows signs that he or she nested, then there is a very strong case for denying unemployment benefits. Nesting can mean many different things, such as the employee having a pillow, being found in an unauthorized private area, sitting in a certain position, etc. An employer might consider giving a warning for a first offense.

There are many legitimate reasons for firing an employee, but not all reasons rise to the level of misconduct, which is the standard for denying unemployment benefits in most states. Many times employees genuinely do their best and are still not able to meet the expectations set by the employer; such cases fall under performance rather than misconduct.

If a former employee is allowed benefits, then the charge is allocated to the employer’s account, increasing the employer’s unemploymet payroll tax rate. This results in the employer generally paying significantly more than what is collected by their past employees. Non-profit organizations are treated differently, and instead pay a direct sum equalling what has been collected against them.

The state agencies want to know what the last straw was that led to the discharge. So take note, it is always best to terminate for something specific that happened at the end of employment.

It is best to terminate an employee close in time to the final incident. If the employer delays the termination, he or she is saying that the harm the employee did was not so serious as to warrant immediate termination. It weakens the employer’s misconduct case significantly.

Being incompetent is not an intentional act. To be denied benefits, an employee needs to willfully and deliberately violate a known and reasonable rule.

The unemployment system is a “fault” system. If an employee is no longer at work through no fault of their own, then they are entitled to benefits. If a claimant was terminated for misconduct or left work voluntarily, then they are at fault for being unemployed and should generally be denied benefits.

Each state has their own rules for when claims are due, but generally it is a little over a week from notice date on the claim. Timely and complete responses to claims are required. Personnel Planners receives most claims electonically, affording our clients more time to respond.

The more benefits that are being collected against an employer the higher the tax rate will be, and the more money an employer will have to pay.

It is a best practice for an employer to allow an employee to work through their notice period, provided it is reasonable in length. If the employer accelerates an employee’s resignation, the agency might think that the employer no longer has continuous work available for the employee.

There are several stages in the unemployment claim adjudication process and the process can sometimes take several months.

While very few states do require attorneys for hearing representation, most states do not. At Personnel Planners, our hearing staff is fully comprised of paralegals who have completed ABA approved post-baccalaureate certificate programs. Our represntatives provide better representation in unemployment hearings than most attorneys and at a much lower cost.