Hi, my name is Alex Granovsky and I’m the Managing Member of Granovsky&Sundaresh. We’re an employment law firm that specializes not only employment law, but we have a subspecialty in severance agreements. In this video I’m going to talk about one particular common section in severance agreements that gets a ton of attention to clarify some frequently asked questions & hopefully allay any fears that people frankly needlessly have. The section I’m going to talk about today is the neutral reference section. Most of the severance agreements that I see from reputable companies contain a neutral reference section.
The most frequently asked question I get when it comes to these neutral reference sections is “well, if it’s just a neutral reference, won’t that make me look bad? They’re not saying that I’m good or I’m bad. They’re just saying that I was there.” Well, the truth is these have become so standard. Nearly every large company that I’m aware of has neutral references as a matter of policy. So, no, it won’t make you look bad. It will make you look ordinary, which in the context of this type of reference, is critical. Which brings me to my next point. My next point is the neutral reference policy really only speaks to one type of reference, which is more of a background check. This confirms that you worked where you claim you were. You held the positions you claimed that you held. That’s it. If your potential employer wants more information about you, they may call your former coworkers. What those people say about you depends almost entirely on your relationship with them. If they like you, if they think you did great work, hopefully they’ll say great things about you. If not, hopefully what was them as references.The point is that has nothing to do with your separation agreement.
Lastly, a lot of people, when they see a neutral reference, they say “well, what about a positive letter of reference? Wouldn’t that be good? Wouldn’t that make me look good?” Paradoxically, no, because those are so rare and they typically come up in situations where the person’s termination of employment is acrimonious. So, it tends to signal to the employer that there’s something strange that you’re getting some written response about a person rather than the name of somebody who they can call to check in on you. There’s something peculiar about me – I’ll tell you if I got a positive letter of reference for somebody from their prior employer that would raise my eyebrows wouldn’t disqualify them, but I would think, hmm, that’s weird. The point of all of this is the neutral reference clause that’s in most separation agreements is perfectly normal and nothing to be concerned about.
Now, we would be more than happy to help you with your separation agreement if you have any questions or if we could be of any service, please feel free to reach out. Call email anytime. Thanks for watching. Take care.