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Employment lawyer outlines the top three things you should ALWAYS ask your employer after being fired, including WHY you were fired
- Craig Levey has gone viral on TikTok after sharing how to navigate getting fired
- He said you should ask why you were fired and when your benefits will end.
- The lawyer also advised asking if there is a severance package.
An employment lawyer has outlined the top three things you should ask your employer after you’re fired.
Craig Levey, a partner at Bennett & Belfort PC in Boston, Massachusetts, went viral after detailing how to properly navigate the termination process in an educational video.
The TikTok user, who goes by the handle @craigleveyesq, explained that the first thing to ask after learning you’ve been fired is why you were fired.
“Human resources and your supervisor generally won’t tell you why you’re being fired,” he said. “They usually keep it short and simple, but if they do provide you with an answer, it could be valuable evidence if you have a case against the company at a later date.”
Craig Levey, an employment attorney from Boston, Massachusetts, went viral on TikTok after detailing how to properly navigate the termination process.
Under the US at-will employment system, an employer can fire an employee without cause or warning, as long as the reason is not unlawful.
Second, Levey said you should ask when your benefits will end.
“You want to make sure there isn’t a gap in your health care coverage, so you want to know exactly when it ends to make sure you’re covered,” he shared.
Finally, the lawyer advised to ask if the company will offer compensation.
“You want to know if the company is preparing a settlement agreement for you to evaluate whether to take it or not,” he explained.
The lawyer said the first thing to ask after learning you’ve been fired is why you were fired, saying it “could be valuable evidence if you have a case against the company.”
Second, Levey said you should ask when your benefits will end to make sure there “isn’t a break in your health care coverage.”
If a severance package is offered, Levey recommended “hiring an employment law attorney to determine if the money on the table is valuable enough if you have claims against the company.”
The video has been viewed more than 894,000 times and has received hundreds of comments since it was posted on December 28.
Several people have opened up about how they were treated when they were fired.
‘The day before my benefits ended, I was fired for ‘my mental health.’ With no severance, I couldn’t even collect my leftover PTO,’ one person wrote.
Finally, Levey advised asking if the company will offer compensation. If there’s a package at the location, he recommended talking to a lawyer to see if you should take it with you.
The video has been viewed more than 894,000 times since it was posted, and hundreds of people shared their own ending stories in the comments.
“They told me I can’t ask questions because they’re not negotiating… I thought I understood that, but I’m a human worthy of answers,” recalled another.
“They told me it didn’t fit well,” someone else added. ‘That happened after I raised my concerns about the new manager[‘s] misbehavior. So here I am…’
There were also some supervisors and human resources staff who shared how they go about firing an employee.
“As a supervisor, we basically itemize it for six months before a period,” explained one user of his company’s termination process. “There’s a verbal offense, a written offense, a final offense, and then another offense has to occur.”
‘Unfortunately I have had to let people go and these are exactly [three] things I go over first. Employers should tell employees this,” another noted.