Losing your job at Microsoft is hard, and the severance paperwork may arrive before you have had time to absorb the news. Recognizing what those documents ask of you helps you weigh the decisions ahead.
Signing away legal claims for severance
Microsoft may offer pay and other benefits if you agree to give up a broad range of legal claims. Federal and Kentucky law do not require severance, so your right to it depends on a contract or company policy.
A valid waiver can stop you from suing over discrimination, retaliation, contract disputes and other issues tied to your job or layoff. It also reaches claims you discover later, as long as they arose before you signed.
Severance terms cannot take away your right to Kentucky unemployment benefits if you qualify. You remain free to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, though the waiver may prevent you from recovering money for a claim it covers.
Reviewing age discrimination waivers
If you are 40 or older, the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act adds safeguards when your employer asks you to waive age discrimination claims as part of a group layoff. You have at least 45 days to consider the final offer and at least seven days after signing to revoke the agreement.
When that 45-day period begins, Microsoft must give you a written list of the job titles and ages of employees it deemed eligible or selected for the program. The company must also disclose the ages of everyone in the same job classification or organizational unit whom it excluded. These figures help you see whether the cuts fell more heavily on older workers in the group the layoff drew from.
A severance agreement that fails to meet these requirements does not bar a federal age discrimination claim. Its release of other claims may still hold. You can challenge the waiver in court without first returning the money.
Checking whether your employer owed you notice
Kentucky has no state equivalent of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act, so the federal law applies. It generally requires covered employers to give 60 days’ written notice before a shutdown or mass layoff. A shutdown triggers this duty once job losses at one site reach 50 within 30 days, and a mass layoff requires at least 500, or at least 50 that make up 33% or more of the site’s workforce.
Neither number includes workers the act defines as part time. If you work remotely, courts disagree on whether to count you at the office assigning your duties. If Microsoft failed to comply, you may recover up to 60 days of back pay and benefits.
Negotiating terms before signing
Your severance agreement may include a nondisparagement clause that limits what you say about the company. A noncompete can restrict where you work next. The release often extends beyond Microsoft to managers and related businesses.
An employment attorney can examine whether the offer undervalues your rights or masks unlawful bias. The claims you would waive also give that lawyer leverage to ask for more pay, longer health coverage, continued stock vesting or narrower clauses. When you take time before accepting, you leave room for that conversation.