Recently I was looking through the terms of a web service that I use, and I found this statement buried in there.
We can revoke your [company name] account at any time. Sounds harsh, right? We’re unlikely to ever do that, unless you do something truly annoying or stupid. We’re not going to list the annoying or stupid things you can do to make us mad, because that’s like a magnet for stupid and annoying people. Just don’t do stupid stuff with your account, and we’ll leave your account alone.
It reminded me of an at-will statement that I would probably put into our employee handbook (if we had one). Let’s translate it to “HR” speak:
We can revoke your employment at any time. Sounds harsh, right? We’re unlikely to ever do that, unless you do something truly annoying or stupid. We’re not going to list the annoying or stupid things you can do to make us mad, because that’s like a magnet for stupid and annoying people. Just don’t do stupid stuff while you’re working here, and we will keep you on staff.
It’s not perfect, but it works. And it’s much more readable than “this is not intended to be a contract of employment; this employment relationship can be terminated for any reason at any time.” Blah.
Do you have an at-will statement or other “blah” piece in your handbook? Post it below and let’s try to rewrite it in a fun/interesting way.Â
Ben, that’s a great translation from legalspeak to common sense. It feels good to simply say, “This is an at-will state: we’ll try to make you happy enough that you keep showing up and doing a good job and we expect you to try to make us happy enough that we’ll keep paying you.”
Pingback: Stupid? Annoying? You're Fired. - upstartHR | Better HR with the right HRMS | Scoop.it