Employee Final Pay Rules: HR Rights and Obligations for Successful Separations

Employee Final Pay Rules Webinar Recording

Whether it's an unexpected resignation or an immediate termination, the clock is ticking on your employee's final paycheck. And if you delay or get it wrong, you could face strict waiting-time penalties or even a wage & hour class action.

At the end of employment, employers may find themselves asking many questions regarding final pay: Is accrued vacation considered part of final pay? Does it matter whether the employment ended voluntarily or involuntarily? Can you withhold the final paycheck until the employee returns company property? Can you deduct from final pay for theft or damages?

The best way to avoid costly errors is have answers these tricky questions and more BEFORE an employment relationship ends. Get up-to-date on your final pay obligations and make a clean break with a departing employee.

Participate in this interactive webinar, and you'll learn:

• When wages must be paid after you terminate an employee or when the employee resigns
• Types of waiting-time penalties and how to avoid them
• How to properly calculate the amount of vacation pay, sick leave pay, and commissions owed upon separation of employment
• Limitations you may face when trying to recover a loan to an employee or money for damage they caused to company property
• How to enforce a reimbursement agreement
• What you should do if the employee claims you still owe him or her money
• What a change in relationship letter should always include
• Severance pay and separation package pointers
  - Writing you should draft in support of any severance or separation agreement
  - Types of claims you’re permitted to release with proper monetary “consideration” and the ones you can never release
• When you should consider contesting a claim for unemployment and when you might consider not responding
• Pre-termination best practices so you can minimize surprises
• Proper documentation of performance, discussions, tardiness, absences, and other issues
• When you should offer the employee a chance to formally resign instead of terminating him
• Effective strategies for conducting productive exit interviews
• The game plan to follow when you’ve got a problem employee on your hands
• Best practices for designating someone internally to be the point of contact for all former employees

This webinar was recorded on Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Employee Final Pay Rules: HR Rights and Obligations for Successful Separations

About Your Speaker:

Attorney Michelle Lee Flores is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Fisher & Phillips LLP. She focuses her practice on all aspects of employment litigation, including jury and bench trials, arbitration, mediation and pre-litigation negotiations, involving sex, race, religion, age and disability harassment and discrimination, wage and hour violations, including class actions, and wrongful termination.