Notice Periods

Here's a scenario for you to think about:  An employee's notice of resignation comes at 1:47PM via an email, with the employee departing immediately without speaking to his/her supervisor.   As an employer this surprise resignation may shake you a bit.  Stepping past your surprise and astonishment, my question to you is "what notice should an employer expect from employees?"

 

Let's remember that most of the US is "at will" employment, which means both the employer and employee are free to end employment at any time, with or without notice or cause. This implies that either party is entitled to terminate employment without notice for any reason, unless the termination violates federal or state laws or public policy (and/or unless obligated by an existing contract). Generally Texas Law does not require that either the employer, or the employee, provide notice of ending at-will employment.  In this case, the employee chose to exercise the right to exit immediately. 

Two weeks notice is an ethical standard, a courtesy.   From a 10,000 foot level a notice period will allow the company and the employee to attend to transition details. A departing employee generally has some body of specialized knowledge that will be lost to the organization if it is not fully documented before s/he leaves.  This notice period will allow:

• the exiting employee to transition their project, employee knowledge, etc., onto other employees.
• the employee and the company to carefully review work in progress.  
• the company time to find a replacement or to just shuffle resources to cover the vacancy. 

A notice period may be specified by company policy, for example in the Employee Handbook, and this could affect at-will status.  So please be mindful of how your policies are written.    In this particular situation, to avoid affecting at-will employment, the payment of a fringe benefit, i.e., unused vacation leave, was tied to a two week notice period.   In this scenario the employee was somewhat disturbed to find that the brief notice period provided didn't quite meet the two week requirement outlined in the policy.

Yes, it is sometimes desirable to transition the employee out of the organization as quickly as possible.  I am of the opinion that in most circumstances, the moment an employee resigns psychologically s/he is out of the company.  We have all heard of "short timers syndrome."  The employee may hang around to complete their mandatory notice period.  Despite their feelings about the job they are leaving behind, it's human nature to take a detached approach to something you know is coming to an end.

Resignations are an emotional time for everyone.  Let's all please ensure we handle them professionally and legally.