Employment At Will

Employment at Will Doctrine

Introduction

It is very important for employees to be aware of their rights in today's changing business environment. An advantage could also for the employees to be familiar with the employee handbook to understand about the human rights and privileges along with knowing about the relevance of being an employee. The core focus of this paper is to discuss the Employment at Will doctrine and the exceptions of Whistleblowing. It is very important to understand by the employers that employee policies are a legal necessity for them. Employee policies are also a source for administering appropriate workplace behavior. An objective of this paper is also to discuss the cases provided which is a part of day to day routine of the workplace.

John posted a rant on his Facebook page in which he criticized the company's most important customer.

In this scenario, being a COO of the company, I would never tolerate the use of internet for the purpose for social networking (Facebook) in workplace. Furthermore, violating the workplace policy, I will also not tolerate the insolence towards the company's most important customers. Even if the mode of access to the social networking tool has been done by the employees personal handset, within the duty hours it will be considered a violation and unacceptable. John's rant depicted a negative impact over the company's reputation and offended the most important customer too. The company's code of conduct has been violated, so a clear justification will be required by John. The disciplinary action would be to give him a warning, and enforce a no tolerance for negative criticism to company customers through any kind of social media.

Jim sent an email to other salespeople protesting a change in commission schedules and bonuses and suggesting everyone boycott the next sales meeting.

Protesting a change in this scenario can be very disrupting to the workplace environment. There is a limit to request a change from the salespeople. Those salespeople are designated at higher posts and Jim has no rights to boycott a meeting without noticing the consequences of the boycott. Jim has the right to express his opinion, however, if he had gone through an appropriate chain of command to express his concern. Under the employment-at-all doctrine, if these interruptions cause any unethical problems then this disciplinary act will force me to terminate Jim.



Ellen started a blog to protest the CEO's bonus, noting that no one below director has gotten a raise in two (2) years and portraying her bosses as “know-nothings” and “out-of-touch”.

In this scenario, Ellen feels that her boss is incompetent, meaning he lacks in the knowledge, skills and abilities of the job and is “old school”. In addition, he is being compensated. For two years, no one has gotten a raise or bonus for whatever reason. Under the Employee-at-Will Doctrine, Ellen has the right to address the situation; however, Ellen must pay attention to her choice of words to avoid slandering the CEO. Ellen must review her contract with the ...