During my trip to Penang, a good friend of mine told me that some of his friends have been asked to take forced leave by their companies. This is not normal forced leave, but forced unpaid leave. I was shocked. My immediate response was “Isn’t that equivalent to terminating them, but without compensating them?”

It is. By forcing these employees to go on unpaid leave, the employers are indirectly forcing them to resign. After all, who can live without getting paid for so long especially when everything is so expensive now. By making them resign on their free will, the employers do not need to pay any form of compensation. Pretty good deal right?

But can the employers actually force the employees to take unpaid leave?

It’s very subjective.

Anyway, based on my conversation with some friends in the HR field, my sister and my father, here are some of the factors which might be associated with this.

• The company can come out with a memo which requires a selected group of (or all) employees to take forced leave. If you have no annual leave (usually those under probation), then you will have to take unpaid leave.
• The company has such records in the past and does not mind its image and reputation being tarnished.
• The company is trying to get rid of a large group of people but not willing to pay the compensation.
• If you are a contract staff, you might not have any annual leave and by forcing you to take leave, it is indirectly asking you to take forced unpaid leave.
• Some employment contracts do not allow the employee or employer to end the contract without mutual consent. However, the employer can requires the contract employee to take forced unpaid leave as a mean to terminate the contract.

The points above are based on my opinions and might not be entirely correct. However, I truly believe that contract staff is the group of people who is most vulnerable to this “scheme”. For permanent staff, the companies supposedly cannot ask you to go on forced unpaid leave (unless you no longer have annual leave) for an extended period of time.

At the end of the day, it is best to save your annual leave if possible and read the terms & conditions of your employment letter THOROUGHLY. If you have any doubts, refer to your HR, lawyers or call the labor department for help.

Last but not least, all the best and hopefully this kind of thing will not happen to any of you. It has already happened to some people, but I’m not sure about the actual situation. If you know anyone who has experienced this, feel free to drop a comment here. I’m sure most of us want to know what actually happened.

Hope it helps.

One of my earlier jobs was in local IT firm, working as a junior developer. At that time, I was pretty young and inexperienced. I signed the employment agreement without noticing that it is actually one-sided and unfair to the employee (me).

The notice period they have to give me if they were to terminate me during probation period is 2 weeks. On the other hand, if I were to leave, I would need to give them 1 month of notice period. This is unfair. I’ve also heard of worse agreements where the employer only needs to give the employee 24 hours notice period, but the employee needs to give the employer 2 weeks – 1 month of notice period.

Remember that employment agreement, if possible, should be fair to both employee and employer. Because it is the black and white document which will safeguard the interests of both parties.

The problem here is, most local companies are just too shrewd and cunning. They will always find opportunities to make the agreement one-sided. If they don’t want you anymore, they can kick you out very fast. But if you don’t want them, you can’t do the same. Funnily, there will always be people who agree to such unfair treatment.

That’s why I always told my friends to check the agreement properly before signing it. If it is unfair to you, then you will have to make the call.

Is the job (benefits/salary/prospect) really that good, that you are willing to ignore the one-sided agreement? Is it worth to take the risk?

If it is, good, make your decision and don’t regret if something bad happens. If no, then go out and find another job offer. Just be prepared because this kind of thing is quite common in Malaysia.

Good luck.