Great question you have, many people want to know the reasons for employment termination. Here are some of the common compliance issues a company can take action on are:

1. Thefts, damage to company properties
2. Sexual harassment cases
3. Absconding to work
4. Irregular attendance
5. Criminal offenses

Only such serious misconduct can lead to termination of employment, not other minor mistakes an employee might make during the normal course of work-life even if HR makes them out to be a major compliance violation.

Termination is not the final destiny of all compliance issues. In the legal system, punishment is corresponding to the severity of the crime. For example, petty crimes like pickpocketing and chain snatching may lead to 6-12 months of imprisonment; we cannot hang the suspect to death for such petty crimes. Likewise, all compliance issues can not lead to termination.

The company has to follow various procedures while terminating employees based on compliance issues (gross misconduct):

1. The company has to issue a warning letter and give chance to employees to present their side. For example, if the employee is absconding and not coming to work, the company has to issue a warning letter to report to work by a certain date. If the employee continues to abscond, the company should try to understand the reason and give a final warning to change, If the employee still not following the rules, the company can issue a termination letter
2. The company should have a precise grievance mechanism and should listen to the employee side.
3. The company should have sufficient proofs to substantiate the breaching employee committed.
4. If the employee has irregular attendance, the company can ask the employee to apply for leave but is not able to terminate them at first stance itself.

In many forced resignation cases, HR officer uses compliance issue as they shield to break employees’ confidence who is refusing to resign. Compliance issue is used as a weapon to make employee submit self-resignation on their own. The employee who agreed to leave will be shown as a voluntary attrition case to the outside world and the case will be closed.

Employees should understand that company should follow legal procedures while terminating based on compliance; even then hanging to death is not the punishment for minor crimes. I am not supporting chain snatching or small mistakes; I am only pointing out that the company has the right to terminate if it is legally correct but not for petty issues.

I also want to highlight some of the areas where employees targeted for layoff may fall into compliance issues.

1. Management will keep the employees who resist resigning on the bench. Many companies don’t have dedicated office space for all employees who are on the bench. Usually, the bench constitutes 5-10% of the workspace and it is difficult for the management also to provide workspace for all employees. So many employees don’t keep timings of attendance during the bench period. For example, if the employee has to log 8 hours of attendance as per company policy, employees on the bench may not log this hour. This will be caught later by management and quoted as compliance issues
2. Take extreme caution on integrity constraints formulated by the company. Now the company is watching for fault and even small integrity violations will be brought big as compliance issues later
3. The company may make employees being on the bench for a long time as a compliance issue. This is not valid as employee placement is based on the sales team getting new projects, the placement team who is responsible for placing employees, and then the employee themselves. So blaming an employee alone for not getting placed is not correct and the employee can fight it back
4. The employee targeted for layoff no more have the same relationship they have before they resist resigning. So it is crucial for employees to maintain professional behavior during this difficult time.