#gold

• OWBPA: Everything You Need to Know

The Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA) is designed to protect the benefits of older workers. 8 min read

• OWBPA

The Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA) is designed to protect the benefits of older workers. OWBPA is actually an amendment of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The act was passed into law in 1990 by Congress.

• Benefits Protections

Employers who have older employees may see distinctions based upon age in employee benefit plans within life insurance, retirement, pension, and insurance plans. Sometimes these costs are justified, which is why the OWBPA makes a provision for the higher costs.

Despite these higher costs, the employer cannot pay any less for an older worker's benefits than they do for someone who is younger. The OWBPA prohibits age discrimination when certain working benefits are included. These benefits cover life and health insurance, disability and retirement benefits, and pensions. The benefits must also be equal to all workers regardless of age.

Exceptions to this rule apply if the older worker receives other benefits from the government or the employer that make up the difference in coverage.

T>here are also rules that vary on the type of benefit. These rules are quite complex.

Source: https://www.upcounsel.com/owbpa

Tag: #Walmart #Reference #GOLD

#GOLD - just tagging it

Is severance negotiable?

Somebody told me that severance is actually negotiable, that it is hard to get them to up it but not impossible.

This sounds pretty out there to me, but he seemed rather convinced he was correct.

What are the chances that there is any truth to this? Would make very little sense, in my opinion, but you never know.

This is exactly how I feel as well. When you think about it, we are all adults and can handle any news you throw at us - just be open and transparent, that's all we ask from the management - I know I am just a number, but still, PLEASE treat me with some #respect! This is a #gold post...

Tired of not knowing

I'm truly tired of not knowing what's going to happen. I wish they'd just come out and tell us what's going on, even if that means I find out my position is being cut.

This waiting and anticipating has become worse than anything that might come out of finally knowing. Just stop with all the secrecy and partial info and tell us!

This is destroying both morale and health of the employees. Not that they care,of course...

I had a case with them and it had to do with an accommodation request - it was handled well and promptly - in my case it was #gold and #professional - cannot comment about other stuff - it seems that many other folks #haveissues

AT&T HR

Anybody dealt with AT&T HR before? Are they useful? I'm considering filing a complaint with them, but I'm scared I might inadvertently end up making things worse for myself, considering that most of the stories you hear about HR end up being horror stories for the person calling out their manager.

LMAO at gxwh! My sentiments exactly! Everyone on here acts all tough and slick and brags about stealing from others, being selfish, greedy and committing immoral acts like it's a virtue!!! Glad it's them, and not me! Great Comment! #Gold!.

My two cents - look where the economy is going... The growth is in digital, the growth is in genetics, pharma and biotech. It's a non brainer buddy - learn to code and communicate as best as possible. Communication skills will help you fend off threats from imported #H1B workers, coding skills will give you an advantage over 95% of the population that cannot code. At that point, you are set for next two to three decades until the economy does another shift.

So, you can still stay in O&G but you can do consulting for O&G (all consulting companies are still in business and are desperate for folks who can 'talk' and 'get the tech') - I think your ki-ler combo would be a bachelors in a field that's applicable to O&G (or anything else), good communication skillset (MBA?) and some tech background (minor in CS or CS masters) - I'd go that way... This will unshackle you from the limits and uncertainty of O&G (Comm and Tech allow you to move industries) but can still help you get a job in the industry you like (e.g., O&G)...

My two #gold cents.

#gold tagged

Open Position / Verizon HR is Hiring

Verizon is hiring a senior HR Specialist who have about 30 years of experience in Legal Matters on Laying Off People diplomatically.

This HR resource should be preferably female with singing ability and know the Song "Break It to me Gently".

She should possess a very Strong Inter-Personal fluent communication skill and the ability to change the mood of people who will be depressed after receiving their termination letter.

For details, please contact the HR at +1.800.DOITGENTLY

wife got laid off last year, we ended up paying the #gold #cobra price - it was very expensive, cannot recall the amount but it was 1K+ for the three of us (wife/me/kid)

Post layoff insurance options

If laid off. What are our health insurance options?

Thanks for the lesson OP, we are #humbled now... #Gold, just #Gold.

What the hell is the matter with all of you. Its a job people. Every 2 weeks we get a paycheck some of us get a decent size one and some get a smaller one. If your not happy with it theb go find a new job. If you are happy with your pay every 2 weeks then ride it until the company closes and work paycheck to paycheck if not just go find a new f---ing job its not that hard. I could care less what they do to liquidate this company either way the only money any of us is going to lose it that paycheck every 2 weeks when he calls it quits and at that tine we will have no choice but to look for a new job. So either leave now or shut the f--- up

That is a #gold question

who made the decision?

who the hell was responsible for deciding who to let go??? some of our best people are gone! who does that??? does our management have any brains left?? wanting to get rid of dead weight i understand, but this is just ridiculous... this is going to come back to bite them in their asses, mark my words...

#GOLD POST

Whatever happens...

Although I’m still not happy with how things have been dealt with and I’m still frustrated, it is what it is and with these lemons, we can sure make some lemonade.

Today I share a prayer with all of my co-workers, whether you are religious or not. Just know that God knows each of us by name, he’s knows the future and he is still in control, even when it seems otherwise. Whatever happens tomorrow or in a few days/week, keep the faith and keep your chin up, there is life after this gig. You are valuable and special and God has a special purpose for your life.

If we are among those laid off, grieve, but do not wallow in the grief for long. Let’s pledge to ourselves to shake off that feeling and embrace the new possibilities that are passing our way. Channel those emotions into acquiring that new hobby, launching out as an entrepreneur or making that career change that we always had on the back burner.

If we are among those that remain, it won’t be a breeze. We will miss our co-workers, people leaders and friends and who knows how much our jobs/responsibilities will change. Let’s use this time to re-evaluate our priorities and career goals. Where do I want to be in 5, 10 or 15 years? Is there a greater purpose or calling on my life that I have shelved all in pursuit of $$$? What changes do I need to make in my life before I am forced to do so?

Remember that in the larger scheme of things – spending quality time with, and having our supportive families and loved ones around us is what really matters. I pray that God will touch and comfort our anxious hearts. In the sea of turmoil may He give us peace. May he abundantly provide for our needs as he has promised - be it emotional, spiritual, financial, mental, social or physical.

Whatever happens…keep the faith. Remember God loves you, you are so special and valuable in his sight, there are so many great plans that he has for your life. Lean on him for all the strength that you need to get through this. Whatever happens….keep the faith!!

-P.S. Frustrated employee that is keeping the faith… Whatever happens!

#gold post

Tired of looming layoffs

I am getting really tired of looming layoffs, especially since due to my age I know that sooner rather than later I will be among those let go. I am nearing my fifties, and we all know that's a death knell for staying employed with the company. I am really not sure they will be able to continue on like this for much longer without major consequences. Morale is already heavily hit, which will, if it already does not, affect productivity. Not to mention that they are loosing some of our best people and replacing them with cheaper newbies who barely know what they are doing. And to think I used to enjoy working here...

Who wins #gold

Questions for the townhall meeting

Ask truly anonymous questions for the townhall meeting here! Go wild!

Thanks, OP, this is a true #GOLD post.

Be Prepared for Coming Layoffs

Layoffs Coming - Be prepared the signs and signals

The most obvious signals to be aware of when layoffs are coming:

#gold post

Try to block any negative thought

It is hard, can be learned

How do you deal with stress?

The continuous threat of layoffs hanging over us is stressing me out so much that it is affecting my health. I am having trouble sleeping, my blood pressure is high, and my concentration is shot to hell. Not that Westinghouse cares, of course. Anyhow, I was wondering how do you deal with all this stress? Any secret trick that helps you stay calm?

Hey @1ugh - I will hashtag this as #PrivateEquity - just want to make sure we have this #gold post saved - so true

TLDR - At a totally different company, in a totally different industry, at a totally different time, a totally different PE firm came in and broke up the company. WATCH OUT!

Quote : I was an employee at a public company which was bought out like Staples. 50% layoffs in the first year, (about 10-15% each quarter) but they also cut my medical benefits, etc and doubled my workload to make up for the that missing 50%. I left after 15 months of it. 15 and 20-year employees got about 50% of their expected pensions.

#gold post

Process to determine who to layoff is based on how much money a person is making. The higher your salary, the more at risk you are. So guess who those folks end up being? Your long time employees and older employees. It really ends up as disparate treatment of age discrimination. They displace you, realign people and move a lower paid person into your exact job. They are just on the lower side of the pay scale. I've always thought this is a mistake financially and if future inovation within the company. Those folks with tenure know the business, what works and how to make things better. Keeping the younger and less tenured only costs lots of money to build thier skills and knowledge, make the same mistakes, spend millions to test what we already tested in the past, etc. The so called realignment is just an excuse to get rid of the higher earning older employees. Somebody has to pay for all company mistakes. So it has to be the worker bee employees.

Oh, this is #gold:

You got this!

We all here at CB&I have to stop whining. S--- it up and get a game plan going.

This is what successful and resilient people do.

They don't dwell. So what! You are going to have to make changes. WELCOME TO THE THE REAL WORLD. Did you plan on staying at this company forever? Did you base your happiness on this job? If so, stop belong a pansy and deal and adapt! Wish you all the best but stop being weak you got this.

This is the #gold question - if you treat people with respect, pay them well - they will return that 100 times over

How would you change CB&I

The company has their issues there is no questioning that. I wonder how things might be different if we trained their upper management teams in better communication skills. In my years with the company (HR) one of the main complaints is how managers do not properly communicate. We have lost many good employees uselessly. I've seen it personally, because they disagree with their superior. In reading these posts it is obvious how this is a problem. How would you suggest this issue be fixed?

@oli - thanks for this - this is #gold

I work for a IT Staffing and Services firm and I think the most important aspect of working with a recruiter is building a relationship with one you can trust. If they do not ask to meet with you face to face, then you can assume they are the type of recruiter that isn't serious about your best interests. You should NEVER have to pay a recruiter for their services. The fees are paid by the clients that they place you at. Recruiters are paid on commission so be up front with them on how much you need to make (hourly rate and salary expectations) so they can match you up to relevant positions that meet your expectations. A good recruiter will negotiate on your behalf to get you as much as they possibly can. They will also let you know if you are over priced for the market. If you feel like it is a difficult negotiation, you are probably not working with a recruiter that has your interests in mind. The good news is that now is a great time to be looking for a new job (especially in IT) as unemployment is at record lows and there is a war for talent out there.... especially with Healthcare domain experience. If you need help finding a Staffing company, start with seeing who is ranked by staffing industry analysts and work your way down the list. http://www2.staffingindustry.com/Editorial/Daily-News/List-ranks-largest-IT-staffing-firms-in-US-by-revenue-38639

@nbe you need to be careful with Glassdoor. They make money by posting jobs and by selling page access to HR departments of large companies. There is a pricelist floating on the web, I think it's 50K to 100K per company per year just for page access (that's why our page on Glassdoor is branded and neat - that's why you see WMT's replies to our messages there). Anyhow, as expected, we are the biggest customer.

So, Glassdoor follows the proverbial "customer first" logic - you and me and that guy that does research on recruiting are just fodder to them...

Your best bet is social media and here on layoff.com - people know Glassdoor is biased, so this would be like an alternative source of info. Granted, there is ton of #negativity here but you will find some #gold nuggets as well...

#gold

Oracle was getting so much grief from customers over poor support, they decided to try and move back tot he States. Sadly, they thought just hiring in the U.S. again would solve their issues. But these days they still only hire the most unskilled and unmotivated support people in the U.S., just like they do in India. So the support quality is still garbage. Oracle managers, if you are reading: it wasn't the Indian accents or time zone issues that were the problem. It was that you hire totally unskilled people with little or no experience, refuse to train them, and never give raises to retain the few who do get good somehow. Customers don't care if they are supported from America or Bangalore, they just want to talk to someone who has a basic understanding of the product. Why don't you clowns try THAT?

#GOLD post, just tagging it...

I am torn here – as an employee I want to see some stability and security. I guess, more than “some”, I want a lot of stability. But, as a citizen, I do not want our businesses to become stale and ineffective. Now, I have two conflicting needs here. My first “need” is afraid of risk, my second “need” wants a dynamic, prosperous, thriving and growing economy. How do I reconcile the two…

True #GOLD post

I remember liking working here. People were kind to each other and the end goal was always helping students. Boy are those days gone in every aspect.

Today, the management is rude and completely immature, upper management has no idea what is going on with line level employees, and there is absolutely no communication between different levels of management.

With leadership like this, no wonder we have become the joke we are.

All companies are like this.

Your list is a #gold list and should be preserved for all companies and all candidates to use (not only Portland or Nike)...

For folks entertaining a Nike offer who are on this page conducting due diligence before saying yes:

1. know that your hiring manager can't promise you anything about job stability. and that three times in the last 10 years Nike has let go of batches of high potential people who were either within a struggling project or business, or had a poor leader

2. know that its leaders are not perfect. they will make mistakes- including how they go about realigning their people against an evolving marketplace

3. know you will not retire with this company. I'm in my late 40's and thought if I delivered great work and didn't make enemies I could dedicate my professional life to this company. I no longer believe this.

4. know that Portland is a small city. this means that if you get let go or decide to leave the company - depending on your experience & desired compensation - in all likelihood you will need to make financial tradeoffs OR move to a larger city

5. know the bottom line: at every moment in time, Nike is looking out for what it currently believes to be in its best interests. and so should you.

-- from a current employee

True #Gold Post:

Run! I have no doubt a legal issue or class action will arise on age discrimination and how these "assessments" were handled, all subjective by the manager/director. Yet those are the ones that are highly paid and need to be let go. They keep their safety net near regardless if one is competent or not. They have people that did not get impacted and had poor performance reviews and coaches... this is fair how?

#GOLD Turd

The boomers add value from an SA perspective, but working with people who don't have excel skills, didn't grow up with computers, can't get Skype to work, don't like to text or IM, still like to leave voicemails, won't bend the rules to help a customer out... Won't spend a dime today to make a dollar tomorrow... Won't let us hunt for new business because they are too worried about "account managing" the business from the past...

Good points - every experience is unique, this worked for you. In my case, after 28 years with Nike I would not have problems if I was to stay with Nike for 5 more years (until retirement) - things did not pan out and that's a bummer...

I was laid off last summer and to be honest it was the best day of my work life. I was not happy working at Nike.... too much stress and long, long hours. I did work with a great group who worked hard and had integrity, that is why I lasted for 5+ years. I took a few months to regroup, took a class to update my resume and started networking. Within 6 months I had a better job, better pay, better location, better vacation and best of all better hours. I have a life and I'm so happy.

I thank Nike for the experience because I'm sure I got my new position because of my experience with the Swoosh. I'm thankful for the time there and thankful I have a bigger network of hard working colleagues.

I wish everyone laid of this round and future rounds the best of luck. You will land on your feet and I bet your life will be better when you do.

#Gold Post

Pro tip #gold

Hi all,

I just wanted to write this to give people a glimmer of hope.

I was an EMC employee for over 9 years. I never had any illusions of retiring from EMC (I started with them at 31 years old), but when they layoffs hit us in November 2017, to say it was a slap in the face was an understatement.

My entire team was wiped out. I then braced myself for the arduos interview process that came, which turned out to be just as sh--ty as I had imagined (I'm a Software Engineer).

However, after three months of interviewing, I landed a job at a great company with an amazing team, and a near 25% increase in salary. I used the exit package money as part of a down payment for a better home. Right now, every single one of my team members is gainfully employed.

To be honest, I had been looking for another job weeks before the layoff. I hated EMC. Management s---ed and the product I was working on was a f---in' piece of sh--. Getting laid off was a total blessing.

My advice is that you should calm down. Relax. Get your resume ready, prepare well for your interviews, and put your family first. Hug your kids. Kiss your wife. You will most likely end up in a much better position. EMC f---in' blows.

#GOLD

@OZLDKMP-1qqw, +1. True #GOLD post.

It's awful for the people let go. It's awful for the people still onboard with job instability and current conditions. No winners here. Unless you are one of those executives cashing out millions in stocks. But if you are reading this post, you're not, and it's a hard time for all. Let's not take this out on each other. This is tough. Period.

I don't think he cares - he runs his business and the stock keeps going up. I am not trying to be mean here, I think he is required to put shareholders first and he's doing it.

The bigger question here is why do we as a society accept this concept (disregarding the worker and giving all TLC to the shareholder). As a society we'll face issues in future if we continue this way as we are destroying our middle class while enriching the shareholders who are primarily very wealthy.

I do not have anything against wealth, folks earned or inherited money and I respect that. All that I am saying here is that we we continue to erode rights and protection of the worker we will continue to undermine (from the economic standpoint) our middle class. This has been going on since the 1980s and it's accelerating recently.

The leaders of major corporations need to have a heart to heart with the Wall Street and to discuss this - if we continue with this 'shareholder first' mantra what kind of consequences we will be facing 5, 10 or 15 years from now.

I don't know, it's a hard one to solve but given how much folks were pissed during the last election (both the left and the right) I think we'll have a massive social unrest very soon - at that point no amount of #money or #gold will be enough to calm things down...

Just my two very humble and relatively uneducated cents...

This is so elegant, I'll flag it as #GOLD:

Tech has become blue collar. Those who will work longer and for less will get the jobs. That's corporate responsibility in an age where corporations become the new moral compass.

#gold

No one is forcing you to work at Sabre

Yes, the layoff was bad. Some good people were let go. Some people needed to be let go. Either way, what's done is done and it's time to move on.

All of you folks still working for the company and STILL bad-mouthing it - give your two-week notice on Monday and quit. You obviously hate the company and don't like working here. You are not helping to make the company better. Just quit - go somewhere else and be happy. Or don't be happy, but just go.

Right, it's bad. A lot of anxiety here too. I hope all is over soon... #gold

This is terrible-do it already!

Fear of the unknown is a legit thing! This waiting game is causing a lot of stress and anxiety for many people. How can HR and even our managers think that we are even being productive right now? My nerves are so bad, I'm not able to concentrate on my work. I overheard another co worker saying how stressed they were and that they were experiencing chest pains.