Federal wage law does not require severance pay: the U.S. Department of Labor says the Fair Labor Standards Act has no severance requirement and that severance is a matter of agreement between an employer and an employee (or the employee's representative). Some view severance as a formal way of asking a departing worker not to hold a grudge; others see it as a reward for years of service. If you have been laid off from 3M, what should you do next? The amount can depend on the employer, the employee's position and years of service, but exit packages tend to share some common pieces. Here is what to look for in a severance package if you are leaving 3M.

What's in a severance package?

A severance package typically includes salary continuation, health benefits, bonuses and outplacement services, according to the workforce consulting firm LHH. Some employers have also addressed unvested stock, as Google and Microsoft said they would in their January 2023 layoffs.

Severance packages can include a mix of the following:

• Financial compensation
• Extension of health care and other benefits
• Bonus payments
• Accelerated or continued vesting of stock
• Outplacement or career transition services

Health coverage has its own federal rule: if the employer normally had 20 or more employees in the prior calendar year, COBRA generally lets an employee who was covered by the employer's group health plan and loses that coverage because of a job loss for reasons other than gross misconduct, and a spouse or dependent child who was on the plan the day before, elect within a set election period to keep group health coverage for a limited time, and the plan may charge up to 102% of the premium.

If your job loss is part of a mass layoff or plant closing covered by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which generally applies to employers with 100 or more full-time employees, the company must generally give at least 60 days of written notice. If an employer fails to give the required notice, it may be liable to each affected employee for back pay and benefits for up to 60 days, but for no more than half the number of days the employee was employed by the employer, reduced by wages paid for the period of the violation, any voluntary and unconditional payment the employer was not legally required to make, and certain payments made on the employee's behalf for that period, such as health premiums. Some states have their own notice laws with lower thresholds or longer notice periods; New York's, for example, applies to private employers with 50 or more full-time employees in the state and requires 90 days' notice. Neither the Fair Labor Standards Act nor the WARN Act requires severance pay, but some states do: in covered closings, relocations, transfers of operations or mass layoffs, as each state defines them, New Jersey (since April 2023, for employers with 100 or more employees) requires one week of pay for each full year of employment, and Maine (for eligible employees with at least 3 years of continuous service at a covered establishment, one that employed 100 or more people at any time in the prior 12 months) requires one week's pay for each year of service, with partial pay for a partial year, subject to each state's rules.

How Much Severance Do 3M Employees Get After a Layoff?

What a laid-off 3M employee receives depends on which written 3M severance plan or policy, if any, covers the employee, any union contract or individual agreement that covers the employee, any package 3M announces for a specific layoff, what those terms say, and the law where the employee works; the 3M section below lists what public sources show about 3M. Ask HR or the plan administrator for the written plan or summary plan description that applies to you, and use it to confirm the formula. In LHH's 2024 benchmark survey of U.S. and Canadian employers, the most common method, used by nearly 4 in 10 respondents, set severance by a combination of position and years of service, and only 7% used a flat number of weeks per year of service for all employees.

Are performance bonuses included in severance packages?

Whether a bonus that is not part of base salary is paid at a layoff depends on the bonus plan, any severance terms the employer offers and state law. Check the written terms of your bonus plan and your state's wage law. You may be able to negotiate, depending on how the bonus is earned and what the plan's written terms say.

Does unvested stock vest in a layoff?

Whether unvested stock vests in a layoff depends on the company's equity plan and any severance terms. In January 2023, Google said it would accelerate at least 16 weeks of stock vesting for affected U.S. employees, while Microsoft said affected benefit-eligible U.S. employees would continue vesting stock awards for six months.

What did laid-off Google and Microsoft employees in the U.S. get in January 2023?

On January 20, 2023, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said the company would cut about 12,000 roles across Alphabet and that in the U.S. it would pay affected employees during the full notification period (minimum 60 days). Google said its U.S. severance package would start at 16 weeks of salary plus two weeks for every additional year at Google, and that it would pay 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time and offer 6 months of health care, job placement services and immigration support. Two days earlier, on January 18, 2023, Microsoft said it would cut 10,000 jobs through the end of the third quarter of its fiscal year 2023 and that affected benefit-eligible U.S. employees would receive above-market severance pay, six months of continued health care coverage, career transition services and 60 days' notice before termination.

Can employees negotiate better severance package terms?

You may be able to ask for better terms, especially if you are not part of a large group layoff. Large companies running broad layoffs may be less willing to make individual exceptions, while smaller employers may have more flexibility. If the offer asks you to sign a release of claims by a deadline, consider having an employment attorney review it before you respond. Draw on the goodwill you have built during your time at 3M when you make the request. If a union contract covers your job, check what it says about severance and talk with your union representative before negotiating on your own.

What has 3M disclosed about severance and layoffs?

Checking what 3M has already reported about layoffs and severance helps you know where you stand. 3M also runs its own severance pay plan for job-loss layoffs, whose newest filing for plan year 2025 lists 13 participants at the start of the year and 28 former employees receiving benefits by year end. Beyond that plan, 3M's 2023-to-2025 structural reorganization cut about 7,000 positions worldwide and recorded $415 million, $187 million and $21 million of restructuring charges in 2023, 2024 and 2025. A separate transformation program 3M started in 2025 added $51 million of restructuring charges, $35 million of it employee-related, with $25 million still unpaid at year end. Ask 3M's HR or plan administrator which of these, if any, applies to your own position.

What happens to your 3M 401(k) and pension if you're laid off?

3M's VIP 401(k) immediately fully vests a participant's employer contributions when a job ends through a management-approved downsizing, business sale or shutdown, along with the usual triggers of age 65, disability or death. 3M's non-union pension plans keep adding benefits for current employees until a planned freeze on December 31, 2028, and 3M says that freeze will not touch anyone who already has a vested benefit or an annuity in payment. Confirm your own vesting percentage and pension status with 3M before you sign anything.