Legal Question in Employment Law in California
My company, very large one, went through a round of layoffs to cut down cost; under which I was effected after more than 11 years career at the company. We were told by the company leaders that the selection criteria for employees who will be effected is Performance, Criticality, Versatility, and Productivity.
My question is how can I ensure that I was ranked fair and square with my peers in the organization. The reasons I'm questioning this is:
- in my last three annual performance reviews, I've exceeded company's set expectations where the majority of employees just meet company's expectations
- managers were part of the process in collecting inputs on the above criteria, however, I have only been under my current manager for about 3 months out of my more than 11 years career at the company, my other team members have been under this manager for longer time and are all females (I'm a male, my manager is female).
- I have taken on several roles during my 11 years career ranging from technical to project management which makes me versatile
Thanks.
1 Answer from Attorneys
You will probably never know if you were ranked fairly because the employer does not have to tell you what they considered and how you were compared to others. That information is confidential. There is no legal mechanism to force them to reveal it, short of a lawsuit based on discrimination, which is like putting the cart before the horse. And even then, the company will fight to keep it confidential and a court may agree to keep it that way, viewing it as managerial discretion. Unless there is evidence supporting discrimination based on age, race, gender or some other protected classification, courts allow employers to exercise its discretion on deciding how to rank its personnel and who they wish to keep.
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