Human Resource Blog

Verbal termination

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In the state of Illinois is it legal to verbally terminate a salary employee (an operations manager) for not providing a set schedule to a immediate supervisor when the operating manager schedule is unpredictable? Hours of two locations, one location site start time at 5:00 a.m- 1:00 p.m, and the second site operating time is 10:00 a.m- 7:00 p.m, with occassional catering time 7:00 p.m- 10:00 p.m. An agenda schedule was given and hours and location sites were documented by operating manager.

There are actually several questions here and we will address them one by one.

Is it legal to terminate an employee verbally in Illinois? Yes, it is. In fact, most employees are probably told in person or by phone that they are terminated, as opposed to those informed by letter.

Is the termination legal? Yes, it is. Illinois is an employment at will state, meaning the employer can terminate any worker, at any time, with or without notice, for any reason or no reason at all. Illinois sets few limits on this doctrine.

Is this policy legal and reasonable? The policy of requiring a management employee to inform his immediate supervisor of his schedule is entirely legal — and entirely reasonable. Unfortunately, when any employee (salaried or hourly) works in two different locations, there is a tendency for the situation to be abused by the worker. He may run errands, take an extended lunch break or stop by his home for several hours, while between locations. Often, it seems that whenever the employer calls location A he is told that the employee is at location B. And when the employer immediately calls location B, he is told that the employee is at location A.

Asking the employee to provide a schedule in advance of the hours he will be at each location is entirely reasonable. It\\\\\\\’s also reasonable to expect the manager to then stick to that schedule. If the immediate supervisor is hard to reach, each week\\\\\\\’s schedule can be emailed to him.
But the bottom line is, even if this policy wasn\\\\\\\’t reasonable, the employer could still fire this employee.