What does "millennial" mean?

@GregoryCurrie Misguided, over educated youthful employee who seems to expect a 10% raise every 6 months, apparently.

Well, I think your first step is to actually establish if he has broken any company policies. It sounds like his level of discretionary effort has gone to 0%, which, in itself, is not something you can fire them over.

If they are working in Canada, the worker is likely to have statutory rights that can not be waived. That includes written warnings before getting fired etc. If it's the USA, it's almost certainly a different story.

It sounds like the companies policies, and this employees wishes are in conflict. If the company doesn't believe of making an exception for this employee (which the company is able to do - it is choosing not to), then it's really up to the employee to decide if they want to remain.

Is there any way for this severance package to disappear? Seems like it's a poor justification for not firing him, unless the company really need capital at the moment.

He has already once had an "early promotion", so why not a second time? You can't expect someone to keep going above and beyond without some extra recognition. Also, "disciplining" someone for doing nothing wrong?

If your business is relying on your engineers regularly putting in 15 hours of overtime each week to meet deadlines - then you need to talk to your project managers and ask them how they're underestimating the work so badly; and then hire an engineer for every 3 you already have working there.

@HorusKol it appears that would cost more money, if they can add the OT they should be earning to a sev. Package they intend to never pay out, and ‚force‘ their employees to quit when they cause problems.

@morbo - well, all they've got now is staff working-to-rule and risk of missing deadlines - I certainly wouldn't resign if I could recoup $700k in severance

I assume if they company didn‘t have their mismanagement, they‘d have no management at all.

If I were this stellar employee you describe in the first few paragraphs I would also be annoyed by this company decision. Moreover, it is quite ridiculous that you are irritated that this "millennial" is not doing OT and not focusing his free time 100% on learning company realted tech. Because, guess what, that is HIS free time.

Having your engineers work OT to meet deadlines is mismanagement. Also not a big fan of you having a problem with your engineer not working OT. This is very toxic.

If he's been in the company for 4 years and received a promotion in the first one, this means that he's already been in his current position for 3 years.

If your company has a serious problem with people just doing what they've been hired to do, I don't think the most serious problem is this employee.

"How do I straighten out this formerly useful employee?". Employees are only useful for you when doing 15h/week OT? Or when their whole life orbits around what tech the company uses? God forbid an employee wanting to learn something new that won't be used by you. Also, whenever I see someone referring to someone they dislike as "millennial" tells me that are some really huge issues. In this case, I think your company is a pretty toxic workplace. Suck everything you can from the employee, give nothing in return.

The worker in question has outgrown his role in the company. $700K (in US dollars?) seems like a lot for 2 years of severance, there are few companies where this is even imaginable. The rigidity of the advancement rubric, the focus on titles, and the reluctance to pay the employee for the work he did makes me think this company is in the finance domain. The employee should perhaps quit and encourage others to quit before racking up 2 years of OT that won't be paid anyway.

@teego1967 CAD presumably, given the country tag. Any smart person, which the employee seems to be, wouldn't risk $700k (in any denomination) by quitting. The company sounds large enough to be able to pay it, and firing him to simply following his contract would give him $700k. Why the hell would he quit and surrender that?

@jaygould, it’s called “golden handcuffs”. It does work but some people really want to advance in their careers and are willing to make big sacrifices for that if they can ensure job security and exercise some agency over their career trajectory.

Sounds like you need to decide if giving this "formerly useful" employee everything he wants is worth it or not. IMHO, once it reaches this stage, this employee has already checked out mentally and is starting to drag others down with him. Seems unlikely you can "straighten out" this one.

I'm assuming this is Canada and not the US?

@teego1967 at the same time, I highly doubt his bump by promotion would be $700k, even perhaps for a couple of years (total additional income combined).

Question, you don't mention if he's already in a management position ("Director" is the next level up)? There's a big difference, and IMO a lot of the answer revolves around, whether he is already doing well in management or just is demanding to jump from a tech contributor to mid-level management. You also don't mention his objective fitness for that role at your org.

I get the impression OP and those trying to get this engineer to quit are just afraid that if he gets the promotion that, according to OP he actually seems to have earned, then he's going to make the rest of you "look bad". Based on the OP, there's no reason (much less a good reason) not to promote this person. You seem to have an exceptional case that your arbitrary rules never assumed could happen and now you're destroying your own employee.

What you're are doing is pathetic: trying to get him to quit to not pay all the $700K of OT he already put in? You all should be ashamed.

I find Qs like this to be amusing and disturbing all in one. The OP asks a forum of people like his employee how to destroy his employee (disturbing part), only to find them destroying him instead (amusing part). The OP has the typical mindset of someone who is afraid of being replaced. Also, the idea that a "millennial" is strictly an age thing as well as something to be derided is beyond toxic.

I've worked with high school kids on robotics that varied from "nothing but talk" to "lets do this". There's just as varied skill and interest levels in younger generations as there were before. Now it's just easier to get distracted, instead of having nothing but work to do before pocket computers & communication devices became a thing.

I suspect there is some missing details here. The more I think about accumulated OT adding up to 700K, the more skeptical I get. In what country are workers who are paid even 100K/year base salary getting OT?