- May 3, 2024
- Posted by: legaleseblogger
- Category: Related News
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Overview of the Situation
Recently, I found myself in a challenging situation after accepting a new position that was advertised as remote. As a single parent who recently lost my wife, the appeal of a remote role was significant due to the flexibility it offered for spending time with my daughter. However, after 9 weeks in the position, I was informed that the role was transitioning to an onsite position due to a change in direction.
Communication Breakdown
Throughout the hiring process, I made sure to clarify the travel/onsite expectations with the hiring manager and was reassured that the role was considered fully remote with only occasional in-person meetings. However, the sudden change in direction and lack of consistent explanation from management about the shift to an onsite position has left me feeling frustrated and deceived.
Discovery of Deceptive Tactics
Adding to my disappointment, I stumbled upon a conversation in a company chat where it was revealed that the initial remote advertisement was intentional to attract a wider pool of candidates, with the plan to transition the position to onsite once someone was hired. This unethical tactic has further eroded my trust in the company and made me question if I want to continue working for them.
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Moving Forward
While the prospect of repaying sign-on bonuses and training costs may be daunting, it’s essential to prioritize your well-being and career satisfaction. Considering your current circumstances and the company’s unethical behavior, it may be in your best interest to start looking for a new job that aligns with your values and offers a more transparent work environment.
Seeking Advice
Although the situation seems discouraging, it’s always worth exploring all possible options before making any decisions. Seeking advice from legal professionals or HR experts can provide you with clarity on your rights and potential courses of action. Remember that you deserve to work for a company that values honesty and respects its employees’ well-being.
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Save that message for your records. Take a photo with your phone, assume any good IT department is watching screenshot tools and image transfers outside of the organization.
It won’t stop them from firing you, they don’t need a good reason to legally fire you. But it will certainly help when you decide to fight them over whatever agreement you signed stipulating repayment of signing bonuses or training costs.
Don’t quit. Don’t move. Don’t commute. Do keep working as you have been. Save that chat record to a personal device. Don’t volunteer to pay back anything.
If they want to fire you for not coming to the office, then that’s exactly what they will do. Don’t sign anything which even remotely implies you are resigning. Let them FIRE you. You likely have no recourse to save your job if they are intend on it being in person, but they also likely have no recourse to recoup the training money (if they fire you). Make it clear, in writing, that you are not quitting and and fully ready and willing to continue working as you have been.
Unemployment may or may not be on the table if they fire you. It would probably depend on your state and how long you need to work for the company for. Hopefully others can weigh in on that.
Get a screenshot of the messages where your employer says they always intended to make this person work onsite and save them in a personal device.
Then do 3 things:
1) set up a meeting with your boss and HR about how you can’t switch to remote and what accommodations are there? (Don’t commit to anything yet but investigate how strongly they will push back). They may back down and you negotiate going in one day a month or something so you can have more time for your job search.
2) Call an employment attorney for a free consultant.
3) Start looking for other jobs.
First, start looking for a new job. Second, document everything with pictures of those chats. Third, you will not have to payback signing bonus or training fees. Give your notice after you find new job and then talk with HR about the the false pretenses you were hired under and how they breached. They will not want to pursue.
In addition, stay remote while looking for new job. Just tell them you need a few months to set up proper child care and scheduling for working on site.
Agree with the folks who are telling you not to quit or show your hand re the emails. If you want to leave anyway, start looking for a job. At the same time keep resisting any move to in person. Make your employer take action first, unless you find a job that you want to take.
If you get a new job before your employer takes adverse employment action against you for refusing to work in person, just give notice and wait for the employer to raise any issue re repayment of a bonus. Only then would I inform them that you have copies of the emails where they planned to post a fraudulent job description and are seeking to discipline you based on the same fraud. Advise them that you would rather leave peacefully where you leave without any repayment given the fraud on their part. Confirm this in writing.
If they refuse, note that both sides can lawyer up and waste money and that in that process their dishonest hiring practices would become public and that you would seek to keep the bonus as well as any damages you would be entitled to as a matter of law.
If they start any adverse action before you have a new job, get a lawyer immediately and see what their plan of attack would be. Once you lawyer up, it’s hard to have a peaceful existence with your employer though. So you probably would want to negotiate some kind of payment and exit.
Immediately make copies of the documentation and consult an employment lawyer. Also, try to save a copy of the documentation somewhere discreetly on the company’s server where only you know its there and call it something innocuous, “just in case” that chat log gets “lost.” The Bar Association in your city/state can help you find a lawyer. A 15-20 minute phone consult call should be free, and they will smell money here once they know you have the documents -makes their job very easy, nothing to subpoena and search for. NAL but sounds like what they did is called fraudulent inducement. Basically, they induced you to come to work there under fraudulent circumstances. It is a civil tort outside of general employment law (regular HR type hiring and firing), but tangentially related in your circumstances. You need a lawyer to help you navigate this. Never threaten anyone or the company, let the lawyer handle making the threats. Your boss is about to be terminated for cause, and your lawyer will likely secure you job protections (if you want to stay there) while also forcing the company to pay his legal fees – costing you nothing. If the situation is such that you cannot stay there, the lawyer will negotiate a generous severance for you.
NAL. But I imagine with that screenshot or photo of the chat, it could be grounds for a bait and switch. An employment attorney can definitely share more information about recourse.
I wouldn’t discuss anything with HR until you speak with an employment attorney. Your attorney can guide you in further discussions with your company.
Edit: I’m in HR and these are the steps I would take if I had solid proof of a bait and switch situation.
You don’t have to leave. Just say no, log in as usual. Make them fire you. But before that I would also request a meeting with that person’s boss via email and HR and forward those screenshots. I would also write a bit about how unprofessional your manager was to do this, especially to single parent where they know you can’t be commuting that long.
I bet you’d get an email response saying you can continue working remotely before they even schedule that meeting.
don’t quit. if you are fired you have a good UI claim. state you are working remote as was agreed to at time. produce what you can and ask for more work. you have a solid case to pursue a detrimental reliance claim- you took actions based on what you were told would be your working conditions at time of hire.
In nearly every state the change to work in office would be a material change of your employment terms and would constitute ‘constructive dismissal’ which does protect your right to unemployment. That you also have written conversations from management planning this in advance will definitely help protect your unemployment options since you can submit that to your state unemployment office as evidence of constructive dismissal.
I’d also absolutely send a copy of that discussion to the state BOLI office as well as the EEOC [Filing a Formal Complaint | U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (eeoc.gov)](https://www.eeoc.gov/federal-sector/filing-formal-complaint) to file a complaint against them.
Lots of good advice, mine is only about the sign on bonus. Whatever you do, don’t pay back the sign-on bonus. Let them come get it from you. Let them sue you and if they do, then pay it back. Many companies won’t bother because it will cost more than they will get back. I know plenty of people that have left before the required time and did not pay back the sign on bonus. While in normal situation I don’t agree with this (you honor an honest agreement) this is not a normal situation.
Not sure what state you’re in, but this might be considered fraudulent misrepresentation to induce you to enter into an employment contract / relationship.
An attorney consult might be worth checking into.
Ultimately it might not be a case you’d pursue but it’s nice to have a claim and possibly a letter from your lawyer in your back pocket when you’re negotiating on the way out.
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I also live in IL and about 7 years ago I was able to receive unemployment even though I quit my job. It would have been easier to force them to fire me, but it ended up in my favor because the judge (or whoever) said I “quit with due cause.” I had a verbal agreement with my employer that I would stay there instead of taking a different position on the condition that work was limited to 45 hours /week. About 2 years later, the turd decided he didn’t like that agreement and mandated 60+ hours/week.
I think the main reasons why it went in my favor was the agreement we made and that it wasn’t communicated how long these longer hours would last (his answer -“for the foreseeable future.) The former boss fought the claim, and we went through 2 rounds of mediation, but I was able to keep the unemployment payments when all was said and done. It worked out great for me because it allowed me to be pickier about what job I was able to take.
Just keep working remote till they fire you
If they try to enforce your coming in to work, you have a claim for fraud, and it’s not even close. You absolutely have a good claim against the company that, if I were in their position, I would fix by saying, “Of course you can continue to work remotely.”
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