Dear Friends,

I would appreciate it a lot if the Labor and Employment law experts can give some pointers on this.




I work for a local company, and i wish to propose this new regulation to the board. My company has been paying sales staff their commission even after resignation. I would like to abolish this. The proposal is that as long as the staff is still in service, the commission will be paid. But if on the date of commission paid out, the staff is no longer in service then his commission is forfeited.

Is this legal? Any comments, opinions?


Regards.

ooo man...that sounds like rip off.... try to be fair to everyone...
if the commission is their hard earned money...let be it... don't take somethin that is not yours

This post is not so much to discuss about ethics. The proposal is somewhat final. I was hoping some labor law experts can give some feedback as to whether it is legal or not.


Regards.

Screw you! i hate sales man but i hate idiots like you more. stupid chinaman.

If a person contributed, he should be rewarded. Thats how i feel. Why the need to treat ur employee's that way?

dude, LYN's a place to defend we employees' right, blood sucking chinaman employer should go and set up their own forum to exploit employees' right lol

Of course that's ok. As long as you put it in the contract and everyone signs, it's legal. It's simply an agreed method of calculation for commissions. Just make sure you have a clear cut-off date between the old and new calculations and pay off all the old commissions.

On the other hand, your company is going to get screwed by all salesmen who plan to resign. They are simply going to time their resignations after the commission payment date. And during their notice period, they will stop closing any sales which will fall after that payment date. What you will get is zero sales from those guys during the intervening period. You're shooting yourself in the foot.

@ seantang

I like the way you put the scenario very nicely phrased. You may even be sabotaged cause when an employee plans to leave.. normally they have another job already.. who knows due to you treating them this way.. they could direct ur clients to the competitor (which they may be joining?)

This has got to be the 2nd stupidest thing a management can do to their sales force.

Lets see who wins.

hmm, i think the question is not really too clear, it's hard for ppl to really answer.. a commission is actually what they earned, but most of the time, the practice is not to pay on the spot, so how can u stop something that should be paid but not paid yet.

Not so simple. If commission payout is monthly, they'd basically finish off the sales for previous month, and stop doing sales for the current month before tendering. If not their current month effort also forfeit, ya?

If its two months for commision payout, lol.

You are confusing resigned with resigning. A resignation is complete only when the employee finishes resigning.

I meant that salesmen will plan their last day as an employee (and therefore entitled to commissions) to be immediately after the next payment date of those commissions. And whatever intervening time between the last commission payment period and the next one, they will not sell.

Well we don't know the exact details of how they want to deal with the resigning salesmen. They probably have "all commision forfeit the moment you resign" type of clause.

Doesn't matter anyway. The salesmen will be smart enough to figure when the commissions will stop accruing to them and stop right there.

hate salesman, hate employer who exploit employee even more...

May i know why do you hate salesman? How about sales girl?

I'm glad i got your attention. Let me add a few more details to make it more relevant.



1. Commission payout in this company i mention occurs every quarter. That said, a salesman cant go without sales for a whole quarter unnoticed.

2. If a staff has resigned, why is the company still obliged to pay him?

3. Once this proposal is approved, it will be applicable to all new and existing staff.





Rgds.

Another win for Employer.

then the salesman would just work until comission is paid, resign, then for that month he wont do work..

your paying them because they had brough in sales for the company as simple as that. It doesn't really matter whether are they still with the company. its like telling you. Eh joker, u better work until end of da month and wait for your salary, if you quit before your pay day the company is not going to pay you a single cent. More importantly, sales rep are really paying lotta effort for the sales order, they have to lie, overwork, and sometimes unwillingly doing stuff which they aint like doing. Please respect and value ur employee more. i hope you lose your job soon! hahahaha

if no commision, why a salesman bother to sell ?

What does this mean?

For example, you pay Q1 (Jan-Mar) commission when? Mar31? Apr? May? June?

Noticed or unnoticed doesn't matter. If I'm going to leave anyway and I know you're not going to pay my commissions... why would I care if you notice that I'm not selling?

Go ahead with it. Without advice from a qualified lawyer and some serious legal action, your salesmen aren't going to be able to do anything to you.

Having said that, good luck to your company surviving much longer if you're not willing to pay people what you rightfully owe them.

Hi all.

It seems everyone is getting worked up. In this post, i shall reveal the truth.


I am an employee of Public Bank Berhad. No prizes for correct guesses, but i am the sales person in there. The regulations for forfeiting commissions which i mentioned are currently bring implemented in the bank.

Of course i am very unhappy. In fact, i am planning to leave after i get my last commission, and many other colleagues are following suit. But before i leave, i would like to do the help by at least addressing this matter, or solve it if i can, so that ffuture sales people will not suffer by this ruling.



Regards.

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Added on May 16, 2010, 5:02 pmBump.

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Added on May 16, 2010, 5:02 pmDouble bump.

This post has been edited by eugenetwj: May 16 2010, 05:02 PM

First you say ^

Then you say ^


I see no reason why you could not have stated the "truth" on your first post.

If you are the proposer of this policy, have fun screwing with people's rice bowl in future undertakings.

If you're the recipient, consider whether is this the type of company you really want to work for.