An employee whose performance has been assessed as \u201cgood\u201d in the final reference is not entitled to an expression of regret about their departure and certainly not to the sentence \u201cwe very much regret the departure\u201d. There is also no entitlement to (good) wishes for the private future being included in the reference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if the value of job references may be limited from a recruiter\u2019s point of view and the evaluations do not necessarily play a major role in hiring decisions, references are nevertheless of major importance for German employees. In Germany it is still expected that all career stages are fully documented by very detailed references. Even if the value of extremely positive references is limited, it should not be underestimated how disadvantageous a (possibly hidden) negative evaluation can be for an application process. Therefore, (former) employers and employees often have controversies on references. There are rulings dealing with all the little details of references, from the exact wording to a crease in the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the present case, which was decided by the regional labor court of Munich (15.07.2021 – 3 Sa 188\/21), the employer and the employee fought about the wording of a job reference after the employee had resigned. The employee claimed a wording in which the employer expressed regret for the termination of the employment relationship. Furthermore, the employee demanded wishes for the private future, which had previously been expressed in personal letters, to be included in the reference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the labor court rejected the claims. The employer is not obliged to include the demanded closing formula in the reference, according to which the employer \u201cvery much regrets\u201d the employee\u2019s resignation. In general, employees are not entitled to a personal closing formula in a reference, as the Federal Labor Court ruled in the past. There is no entitlement to an expression of regret in the case of a \u201cgood\u201d conduct and performance evaluation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moreover, the employer is not obliged to include in the reference a closing formula wishing the employee \u201call the best and much success for their professional and private future\u201d. A reference must be worded in a clear and comprehensible manner. The employer is not obliged to express personal sentiments such as good wishes for the future, as this is of no significance for further occupational progress. This applies even if such wording has previously been used in letters to the employee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In order to avoid conflicts arising from job references, the wording of a reference should be chosen carefully. For many phrases, the (hidden) meaning is clear. Thus, employers are advised to use templates for the wording of references.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An employee whose performance has been assessed as \u201cgood\u201d in the final reference is not entitled to an expression of regret about their departure and certainly not to the sentence \u201cwe very much regret the departure\u201d. There is also no entitlement to (good) wishes for the private future being included in the reference. Trouble maker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"No entitlement to the expression of regret in a job reference - Verena Braeckeler-Kogel, MAES (Basel) and Leon Valentin Werlitz","_seopress_titles_desc":"Employers neither have to express great regret about the resignation nor wish all the best for the future in a job reference - Pusch Wahlig Workplace Blog","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[179],"class_list":["post-3634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-workplace-law","tag-reference-letter"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3634"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3640,"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3634\/revisions\/3640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwwl.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}