Human Resource Blog

If the employer is an at-will employer, they may terminate an employee at any time, with or without reason and with or without notice, as long as the termination is not for an illegal reason. In other words, the employer may not terminate an employee due to their race, gender, age, etc. or in retaliation for making a complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a sexual harassment complaint, or the like.

Most employers have a policy stating that falsification of employment forms is grounds for termination, regardless of the position. It is recommended that any medical questionnaire form used also include this statement.

Also, if this is an at-will employment situation, the employer may terminate the employee for any reason, or no reason, so long as there is no violation of law. Even in the absence of a written policy, a termination based on the employee’s falsification of employment or other company documents would not be illegal.

Illinois does not require employers to provide vacation; they only require that if you do provide vacation, unused and accrued vacation must be paid out at termination. If the company did not offer vacation prior to 2012, the employee would not have earned vacation prior to that time.

However, even in the absence of a written policy, if you did have an established practice of providing a certain amount of vacation time per year, the employee may have a valid claim. Illinois considers vacation to be a part of wages, and thus once given, it cannot be taken away.

But if the past practice was merely that an employee would occasionally be granted a day off here or there, with no implied policy or agreement that a certain amount of time would be given, this would probably not be considered an established policy, and thus it would most likely not be considered as wages due and payable.

Your vacation policy should have a statement regarding the effective date of the policies included therein. If there was no policy or practice of providing vacation before the effective date, you are not obligated to retroactively offer it now.

No, you cannot interfere with your employee’s legal rights, one of which is to apply for unemployment. However, you also have the right to protest the claim if he does file for benefits.

Unemployment laws vary from state to state, so you will want to check your state-specific regulations. Typically, employees who voluntarily quit are not eligible for unemployment benefits unless they can show that they resigned due to intolerable work conditions which made it impossible for them to continue working. What constitutes intolerable work conditions will generally be decided on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with state protocol.