To think she’s lying? Or do companies really do this?

[BlazingSunsh]

A friend I have got closer to over recent months told me that she fell out with her employer, a law firm, and was paid 70k if she agreed to leave without further fuss. She was on 90k at the time. The dispute was over her workload/what she had been given and how she felt she had been blocked to progress. The company disagreed but wanted her to leave so apparently offered this? I find this totally unbelievable?! 70k with no tax? Do these things happen?! If so I want to try it as that’s basically two years of my entire income after tax!

This happened to my friend when she tried to quit a job. They offered her a mega bonus to stay. I think it was about the annual salary!

In a job like that you know where the bodies are buried. ALL the bodies.

I was once made ‘redundant’ so that my line manager didn’t have to write up my annual appraisal in which I had detailed how badly they had treated me.

I had gardening leave before being offered a financial settlement and writing my own reference. My solicitor who witnessed the NDA laughed at the amount of the settlement and said that it was because they knew they hadn’t a leg to stand on.

I couldn’t wait to get out of the place, but still experienced a sense of loss and depression.

Dh was paid about that 5 years or so ago. His former company decided to push him out as he no longer fitted their business model. He’d been there for 10ish years. They did this with several people before him and some after. He was the most senior to be pushed out.

Yes, my ex boss was formerly a union leader.

We paid a woman a settlement even though we fired her for gross misconduct because she was a mouthy twat who would have taken it to tribunal (as well as a lot of other spurious claims).

We were a small company, and the amount of senior exec time it would have consumed was easily going to be more expensive than a fuck off agreement.

Gardening leave means you can't work for another employer during that time - it's part of the agreement.

Yep i know someone who got 30k

Happens all the time with ALOT higher amounts

I have seen a £50k settlement paid to silence a complete liar!

Yep I’ve heard of this know a few who were lucky enough to get it! Usually a pay you off to go quietly and yes it it taxed , not sure on the exact amounts

This is a game best played by those with previous successful experience.
I came across someone who had made over £1 million from the same manoeuvre carried out seven or eight times.

10 months salary in a regulated profession sounds right. Go quietly of your own volition. " I think Lawyer A (or Accountant B, or Dentist C) gave me bad advice, he was so crap you fired him 6 months later, of COURSE i've got a good case against your firm..."

The other situation - I was made redundant on the day before my mat leave started. Obviously I had a watertight discrimination case. But they paid me enough (18 months salary) that the compensation I could have sued for woukdnt cover the legal, childcare, and hassle.

I knew a man who was on gardening leave, 6 months paid, as he was going to work for a competitor. He started the new job, after a few weeks was told they didn’t have enough work, and was put on gardening leave for another 3 months. He was on £70k. Quantity surveyor. I was rotten jealous.

My husband was offered a retention bonus after a number of senior people left his company and they wanted to put a stop to it.

He signed a three year deal that totaled £180k- think it was something like £40k in year one, £60k in year two, and then £80k in year three. All taxable.

He works in finance and deals with accounts worth billions that generate millions for his company, so a no-brainer basically.

Not the done thing in my industry, sadly.

My dh was also given a retention bonus before the company was sold on. It was the company that bought it out, which pushed him out as I said upthread.

A thief siphoned off hundreds of thousands from a public sector business. As the net was closing, they told an attendee at a high-level gathering "and to think that a Board-member would be involved with someone like that."
They left with a six-figure payoff and a glowing reference.

Yes, let's hope no-one from this totally anonymous company is reading this thread about the totally anonymous ex-employee.

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Yes - it's called "hush money"

I left with 6 months salary in lieu of my notice period (6 months notice in contract) plus £30k tax free. I agreed my reference and the statement issued to the rest of the company. Anyone who actually knew me (the office I was based in plus other friendly long term colleagues) realised that the statement was complete bullshit, but my actual boss didn’t realise it, she wrote it, I edited it but she didn’t realise it read like corporate BS! I don’t toe the corporate BS line.

You get it by treading a very fine line between being so bad they actually do fire you (so no misconduct or shockingly bad performance) and just being pretty lacklustre. It helps if you have a protected characteristic. Or know where the bodies are buried. In banking in the 90's it used to be pretty much the only way out.

Where I was working, a guy who was always trouble (bone idle and argumentative) went on holiday for Christmas and when he was supposed to come back after New Year, he called our boss and told him to fuck off, he was going to stay in Thailand, or wherever he was.

The business paid him six months to sign an agreement to fuck off himself. I asked why they'd pay anything and they said he could come back later and say he had been having a breakdown and the business should have been more understanding.

Unbelievable.

The £30k is actually tax free. It’s uncommon for the employer to settle the tax on the balance, but if they did that in itself is a taxable benefit.

Of course companies do this!

Your friend gets paid £90k, and is no doubt not a good fit with the company, so instead of having to endure her awkwardness, they're paying her off with less than 1 years salary on the agreement she goes quietly.

How long has she worked there? If over 2 years it's harder to get rid of someone unless they agree to leave.

With the ‘embellishment’, maybe there’s an element of making light of it because it’s often not really a pleasant situation to be in. As much as the money sounds nice, there are complex feelings involved with being paid to leave somewhere, alongside from whatever the situation was to get to that stage.

Very common in my company when they restructure. Happening to me right now. I'm delighted.