Human Resource Blog

Termination for not smiling

My daugter worked for [employer name deleted] steak house in North Carolina for 2 weeks. She came home one day and two hours later they called her and sad she was fired for not smiling enough. Which is very hard to understand. She also had to buy shoes from them which made her first pay check $26 and only got to wear them once. They never gave her any warning or asked her to smile more. Is this ok to do to a child? I’m in HR and I don’t think so.

Okay, first of all, we know this is your little girl we are talking about…but if she is in the work world, she is going to be treated like an adult, and expected to act like any other employee. (There are a very few exceptions, like breaks and working papers if she is under 16 or 18.)

We are going to respectfully disagree with your daughters version of events. Any trainer in the hospitality industry who did not emphasize smiling and being friendly, would be incompetent. Also, none of their employees would be smiling, so they probably would not terminate anyone for failing to smile. We think it is more likely that your daughter was asked to smile, but thought it was a suggestion, not a major performance issue. Employees in the hospitality industry are expected to be bubbly, upbeat, smiling, energetic and happy 100% of the time — or to fake it when they are not. That is a basic requirement of the job.

Many employers consider the first 90 days a probationary period. If the employee is not a good fit, they will be terminated during that period with no warnings. An employee who does not smile enough would not be considered a good fit.

Having said that, the employer may have violated the law with the $26 paycheck. If this employer has annual revenue of less than $500,000 per year, they are covered by the North Carolina minimum wage law. If the annual revenue is $500,000 or more, they would be covered by federal minimum wage law. In either case, normally the employer cannot make a deduction to the paycheck that results in the employee earning less than the minimum wage for hours actually worked during the payroll period. Both the state and federal minimum wage is currently $6.55 per hour. If you feel that your daughter was not paid the minimum wage, you can contact the North Carolina Department of Labor at www.nclabor.com or the U.S. Department of labor at www.dol.gov.