Comment by adrian_b
17 hours ago
To be fair, such "voluntary exits" with a generous severance package are well above the practices of most US companies, where great numbers of employees are fired without warnings and with little compensation.
So there is some truth in the claims of the MS President.
People often confuse what 'at will' employment means. All 'at will' employment means is that the default is that a worker can quit or be fired at any time without either party having recourse. But this can be overridden by contracts and for basically all white collar and higher paid jobs, it is.
I'm not privy to a standard Microsoft contract so I can't say for 100% certain, but I'd be quite shocked if they don't provide a clause that workers can only be terminated for cause. So they're legally required to buy out contracts if they want to get rid of a substantial number of workers in a short period of time.
Only a MSFT employee can say for sure what their employment contract is these days, but I found an old court case where they used pretty standard “at will” language.
https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/no-breach...
That's very different. That was them rescinding a job offer before a 'real' contract had been signed in something explicitly stating that it was not a contract of employment, and was also fully contingent on them passing a criminal background check - which the applicant failed. So they're losing in both at will, and by the terms of the contract. They still got sued, because people gonna people, but it's not related to a normal Microsoft employment contract.
Is 2 weeks per year really that generous.
No, but it does also include cobra/health for the same period plus 6-12 months of options continuing to vest. Still not generous, but if you're longer tenure and can find another job within the timeframe, it's something.