People lose their jobs for many different reasons. Sometimes it's because they have done something wrong and other times it's due to economic or business decisions.
In this online exercise, you will learn and remember the business English vocabulary connected to losing a job. You will learn not only the names for the different ways of losing a job, but also the vocabulary connected to the process and the possible consequences. This exercise is for both people in human resources and those who have lost a job.
Click here to see an online exercise on leaving a job vocabulary
Read the following conversation between Geoff a human resources manager and Dave, a member of the human resources team, about staff losing their jobs.
From the context, try to guess what the meaning of the words/phrases in bold are. Then do the quiz at the end to check if you are right.
Geoff:'How has your morning been?'
Dave:'Very busy. It never stops! I have a few things to update you on. Are you available now?'
Geoff:'Go ahead.'
Dave:'First of all, Susan from marketing wants to terminate the contract of one of her team?'
Geoff:'For what reason?'
Dave:'For both his level of attendance, he has being missing a lot of days from work, and his overall work quality. She was wondering if this gave us the grounds, the justification to be able to fire him.'
Geoff:'You need to make sure that he's been given by his manager first a verbal warning. But more importantly, he needs to have then been given an official or written warning. Without either of these, we can't do anything.'
Dave:'She said he has had both.'
Geoff:'OK, get signed copies of both. Also, we need a copy of his last performance appraisal. Hopefully, his manager has written something about the problems there. Remember, if we don't follow the legal procedures, he may be able to complain of unfair dismissal, and argue that he was fired because of ethnicity or religion rather than because of his work. And if it does goes to an employment tribunal, we need to make sure we did everything correctly.
Can you also calculate what his severance pay will be. Remember, we have to pay him for any outstanding days of holiday he still has.'
Dave:'I'll take care of it.'
Geoff:'Ah, there's something I need to talk to you about. I've just had it confirmed that because of the crisis, in June we're going to make redundant 40 staff. The Chief Executive Officer wants to lower costs. Also, there will from now be no new staff recruitment.'
Dave:'What, we're going to lay off 40 people. My god! What has the union said about it?'
Geoff:'At the moment, the union doesn't know anything about it. But I'm sure they have suspected that something like this would happen. We'll inform them in the next couple of days and start negotiations to finalise the details by the end of the month. But before that, we'll have to do a proposal on what the redundancy package will be. The longer they've worked here, the more money they will get. So, we're going to be a lot busier here in human resources I'm afraid.'
Below is a definition/description of each of the words/phrases in bold from the above text (which you can also find in the grey box below). Answer each question with one of these words/phrases in bold. Only use one word/phrase once and write it as it is in the text. Click on the "Check" button at the bottom of the quiz to check your answers.
When the answer is correct, two icons will appear below the answer. The icon contains extra information on the word/phrase. In the
icon, you can listen to the pronunciation of the word/phrase.
Now that you understand the meaning of the words/phrases and when to use them, practise using them by creating your own sentences with them in English. Also click on the "" icon under each correct answer and listen how each is pronounced correctly.
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