Employment lawyer shares top three things you should ALWAYS ask your employer after getting fired

An employment lawyer has outlined the top three things you should ask your employer after you get fired. 

Craig Levey, a partner at Bennett & Belfort P.C. in Boston, Massachusetts, has gone viral after detailing how to properly navigate the termination process in an educational video. 

The TikTok user, who uses the handle @craigleveyesq, explained that the first thing you should ask after learning you’ve been let go is why you were fired.  

‘HR and your supervisor typically will not tell you why you’re being terminated,’ he said. ‘They usually keep it short and sweet, but if they do provide you with an answer, it could be valuable evidence if you have a case against the company at a later date.’

Under the U.S. at-will employment system, an employer may terminate an employee without cause or warning as long as the reason is not illegal. 

Secondly, Levey said you should inquire about when your benefits will end.  

‘You want to make sure there’s no lapse in your healthcare coverage, so you want to know exactly when it ends so you can make sure that you’re covered,’ he shared. 

Finally, the lawyer advised asking if the company will be offering severance. 

‘You want to know if the company is preparing a severance agreement for you so that you can assess whether to take it or not,’ he explained. 

The attorney said the first thing you should ask after learning you’ve been let go is why you were fired, saying it ‘could be valuable evidence if you have a case against the company’

Secondly, Levey said you should inquire about when your benefits will end to make sure there is ‘no lapse in your healthcare coverage’ 

If there is a severance package being offered, Levey recommended ‘hiring an employment law attorney to determine whether the money on the table is valuable enough if you have claims against the company.’ 

The video has been viewed more than 894,000 times and has received hundreds of comments since it was posted on December 28. 

A number of people opened up about how they were treated when they were fired. 

‘The day before my benefits ended, they fired me for “my mental health.” No severance, couldn’t even cash out my leftover PTO,’ one person wrote.   

Finally, Levey advised asking if the company will be offering severance. If there is a package him place, he recommended speaking with a lawyer to see if you should take it  

The video has been viewed more than 894,000 times since it was posted, and hundreds of people shared their own termination stories in the comments 

‘I was told I can’t ask questions because they’re not negotiating…I was like I get that, but I’m a human worthy of answers,’ another recalled. 

‘I was told that I was not a good fit,’ someone else added. ‘That happened after I raised concerns about the new manager[‘s] misbehavior. So, here I am…’

There were also some supervisors and human resource personnel who shared how they go about letting an employee go. 

‘As a supervisor, we basically spell it out for six months before a term,’ one user explained of her company’s termination process. ‘There’s a verbal, a written, a final, and then another offense has to happen.’

‘Sadly I’ve had to let people go and these are the exact [three] things I go over first. Employers should be telling employees this,’ another noted.