‘Won’t look bad on your records’: Singapore worker claims company disguised his redundancy as a resignation

SINGAPORE: A Singaporean worker has claimed that his company effectively retrenched him but asked him to submit a resignation letter instead, allegedly assuring him that doing so would mean it “won’t look bad on his records.”

In a post on the r/singaporejobs forum on Wednesday (Nov 11), the worker recounted how management had called him in and told him they were “going to let him go,” without providing a reason for the decision.

“I was verbally terminated by my company,” he wrote. “I was let go on Monday. That same week, Friday was my last day. No PIP or termination letter given. Just sat down one day and said they were going to let me go. I didn’t want to resign but was told to hand in a resignation letter so it won’t look bad on my records.”

The company also reportedly instructed him to use up his accumulated leave, which amounted to about a month of unused off-in-lieu days and annual leave, rather than serve his notice period.

“They told me to clear my leave, which accumulated to about a month of unclaimed off-in-lieu on top of unused leave, instead of letting me serve a notice period,” he wrote. “I understand that they don’t want to pay double. They just pay me for that month and don’t have to pay me during the notice period.”

Now looking for another job, he asked for advice on how to explain his exit to prospective employers: “Is this considered a position made redundant when employers ask? ‘Cause I can’t give a reason to substantiate why I resigned other than to say I got fired. They scrapped and replaced [my role] with a higher position once I left, but the JD is similar to mine lol. Would appreciate any input. Thanks in advance!”

‘Sounds like you were bullied by your HR’

The post drew responses from several Reddit users, including one who identified themselves as an HR professional.

“HR professional here. This is my view: A company can let you go with notice without giving a reason, so no PIP or no reason doesn’t automatically make it wrongful. But being told to hand in a resignation letter counts as a dismissal under MOM’s guidelines (they call it involuntary resignation),” they wrote.

“Them hiring for basically the same JD right after also makes it hard to call it a redundancy. I would suggest not calling it "redundancy" unless something on paper says so. If your last day was less than 1 month ago, you can still file a wrongful dismissal claim with TADM. I think it's worth a quick check with them on whether you have a case.”

Others said he should not have agreed to resign.

One user said, “You... are new to work or something? Why you so good boi anyhow give resignation letter because company tell you to? Let them retrench you and pay you severance, plus everything black and white. Not psspsspss better for your records if you go quietly. They freaking tricked you, bro. This looks to me like a case of wrongful dismissal, luh.”

A third commented, “You could have just refused to clear your leave and serve the actual notice and get encashment of your leave. Sounds like you were bullied by your HR.”

A fourth user added, “‘Won't look bad on my records’ is a lie. So is ‘do not burn bridges’ and other rubbish HR and bosses tell you. This is engineered to protect them and not you.”

As per the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), employees who believe they were wrongfully dismissed can file a claim with the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) within one month of their last day of employment.

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