Employers say more workers are leaving without giving two weeks’ notice
wsj.com
wsj.com
My last job, however, I gave my employer three weeks notice. I cried when I had to tell my boss I had taken a job elsewhere. It wasn't the hardest thing I've ever done, but quitting that job definitely cracks the top five most emotional moments of my life. I'm happy where I am now, but I was happy there too, surrounded by good people and working under a manager I not only respected but admired as a person. I am keenly aware of how rare a thing that is. The only reason I left was because of the company policy that allows people to leave and then come back no questions asked if they left on good standing. I needed to take a personal risk and they actually encourage that.
The point of my anecdotes is: you reap what you sow. Treat people like shit, pay them poorly, humiliate them publicly and they will quit the moment they can with spite instead of hesitation. Show people kindness, pay them what they're worth, and give them chances to learn from their mistakes and you will routinely have people work for you for decades. If more people are quitting without notice then employers need only to look at how they treat people to see why.
Certainly you shouldn't unless you have a really good reason. If you just can't agree about the new product name, you should definitely give notice. If they handed you a gun and ordered you to kill a customer, quit on the spot.
A lot of employees are loyal to companies, not so much the other way around. They're both quite similar: when a loyal employee thinks about quitting, they worry about the impact it'll have on the company. When the company sees someone quit (or fires them), they too worry about the impact it'll have on the company.
Recognising and then losing this mindset is so important. Many of my younger friends who have only been employed a few years appear to have fierce loyalty to their employers. So many have sacrificed salary for essentially worthless options. They appear less likely to ask for a raise, assert their rights to reasonable work hours, dissent to a bad work environment.
The best way I have found for avoiding this is reducing the idea of your job into a very simple transaction, taking the view of a consultant. You have problems that need solving and will pay. I will solve those problems for pay. When seen as purely transactional, I believe the individual feels more empowered and avoids the loyalty trap.
Another thing they liked to do was change the schedule after publishing it. But it's my fault for not checking the schedule everyday.
Though much of the time it should suffice to simply not treat them horribly.
Difficult though that may seem for the management circles of certain organizations.
In my early career I was foolish enough to believe this was just a symptom of earning your stripes or paying your dues. In the first professional job in which I gave two weeks' notice, I worked my tail off during those two weeks to clean up several lagging code repos, write a bunch of badly needed tests, polish off a deliverable for an important system, and write copious documentation detailing step-by-step how to handle any of the little ad hoc things that I had to do on a weekly or monthly basis. On my final day, I even worked an hour late (until 6 pm) furiously giving a tutorial on some of that last-minute work. I was literally sweating in my shirt when I collected my last items and walked to the elevator for the final time.
Months later I came to find out that a former colleague at that firm had given a negative review about me (a very petty action related to being upset about my choice to leave) to another employer when I was interviewing. Now I feel it is completely unsafe to ask them for any kind of reference or recommendation.
So much for really pouring myself into the role and trying, even literally to the final minute, to be an exceptional employee for them...
One reflection I have: I wouldn't worry so much about "negative" performance reviews from former colleagues. After all, you did give notice on that job, so that in itself is a a kind of a negative review of their "performance."
Also, you're more than within your rights to ask the HR contact to "confirm dates of service, and my reason for leaving", only. Most anyone would be more than happy to comply with such a request, even if they didn't exactly see eye-to-eye with you while stuck in the same boat with you, job-wise (since hardly anyone particularly likes saying negative things about other people unless they really have to).
Or if you do feel compelled to let them continue to give their negative review -- you can either preface it ("We had a difference of viewpoints about certain things, which is why I left"), -or- provide another colleague from the same shop who viewed you more positively (or whom you can at least trust to not outright badmouth you).
I once had a "negative" review backfire against me once, many years ago. Someone said some stuff about me in a reference call that they never said to me in person while I was there -- so I brought in another co-worker who quit shortly after I did, as a counter-reference. I ended up getting the job, and it was one of my more pleasant working experiences actually.
Honestly two weeks notice isn't about the company at all, it's about the people you work alongside (including your boss). The company will do just fine regardless, but your co-workers have to pick up the extra slack.
It is not you who has made the coworkers pick up extra slack via your choice to quit without notice. It is the company that has given them that extra burden by placing you in a situation where the only healthy option was to quit without notice. Thoughtful colleagues will understand that the company is to blame for this kind of thing, not the worker who did not give notice.
In cases when someone was treated well and simply did not give notice for some extrinsic, selfish reason (like being offered a sign-on bonus to start immediately at a new firm or something), it will be pretty obvious to everyone that actually the company had treated them well.
You should probably send emails to people about what's where, etc. Or try not to have loose ends. And I can understand colleagues feeling snubbed without a goodbye, much less a happy hour.
I'm not advocating without notice, but when it happens, around "here," I just don't see much of an impact.
I would give warning to my current employer, because I've been here for a long time, they've treated me alright, and I have a lot of knowledge that's important to the business. But I'd see it as a courtesy, not an obligation.
The professional relationships you establish today can be very important in the future. Your coworkers can give you references, help you get hired, or even do the hiring themselves one day. Therefore, it is in your best interest to not be an asshole and leave them hanging by quitting without warning.
There is always ways to make things work when relationships are good.
Most people have little reasons to switch jobs if they are happy.
Lately, I've trended towards not trying to work with people at future jobs I've already worked with as I don't like the pressure of having to live up to whatever expectations they or others have. I'd rather someone have reasonable expectations that I can actually beat and vice versa.
With or without two weeks of pay? I don't think I'd fire someone without two weeks of pay in lieu of notice, although I suppose if the behaviour were terrible enough it's possible.
After all, you will have to be able to cover someone if they are sick (typically short time, no notice) - while presumably replacing an employee fully will take longer than two weeks anyway?
Agreed. 2 weeks feels like a number so small it effectively rounds to 0. I am actually unsure of the minimum notice period here (Australia) but I have typically given 1-3 months notice unless there was a very good reason why I needed to leave sooner.
Turned around that becomes "You're laying me off, in exchange for higher corporate profits, when I have bills due".
So, after all that crap, they want to say a person is doing a disservice to the company to quit without two weeks of extra benefit to the company? Funny stuff. They keep forgetting that capitalism says that everyone, not just business owners, should act in their self interest. Truth told, unless it's a stakeholder-oriented business, then everyone should be giving the company as little as possible. Like the company does them.
Companies that want loyal employees that will make sacrifices for them know what to do. They can go back to old IBM Watson or current, Publix Crenshaw approach of taking care of workers along with incentives for them to improve bottom line. Then, the workers will take care of them and much less likely to disappear in a day. That simple. My money says they won't do it, though. So, ditch them the second you get a better offer much like the CEO or board members would.
As this is the case, I don't think quitting on the spot is an unfair use of the system.
Also, tribunal fees are also quite expensive: £390 for unpaid wages, £1,200 for unfair dismissal.
Further, employers can just make you quit through a series of changes in your job. Constructive dismissal I imagine is quite difficult for the employee to prove.
However, if you feel you are being underpaid, under-appreciated, or asked to do unethical things, why do you owe them anything? Just get out! Maybe if it stings a bit, they'll treat their remaining/future employees a bit better (or go out of business).
I was under the impression an employer could get in litigation trouble for rescinding a formal job offer that costs the employee significantly (ie moving across country, losing their old job, etc).
At the very least I'd imagine they would get one hell of a glassdoor black mark pulling a stunt like that.
How would that work? Wouldn't that be a breach of a binding contract, or is there usually some kind of exit clause to account for specific circumstances?
What I was getting at, is I had heard somewhere that companies can be liable if they extend a job offer then rescind it causing the employee considerable harm. Sounds like it is a "it depends" type of situation.
When I meet people who have quit on the spot, I always assume it was for a reasonable, professional reason. Unless I am somehow presented with evidence suggesting otherwise, there is no reason for that to have a generic stigma of unprofessionalism. It's just a normal part of business life.
The same is largely also true with employment gaps. Too often people make unreasonable assumptions about why someone has a gap. For example, in my own case I have had a big unemployment gap due to a severe family problem that was truly unavoidable and required full-time effort from me for around 8 months. I'll never know how many hiring managers saw the gap on my resume and elected to reject me solely based on that, assuming it was a negative mark regarding my skill or job performance, without ever asking me to find out. I definitely don't want to make that same mistake by unfairly making premature assumptions about other people I meet who have gaps on their resume.
Put it this way, if a manager has this happen more than twice, fire him.
I've quit on the spot once and I think it was ok. I was consulting (paid hourly), had multiple disagreements with my 'boss' (CEO) about major work behaviors (wanted to literally sit behind me while working and watch, critiqued my work despite not being technical and tried to control everything). No loss, had plenty of work elsewhere, wasn't going to use him as a reference.
Other times I've quit from places I've worked at for > 6 months I gave at least 2 weeks notice.
So, use your judgment :)
If someone I work with quits day-of, and there's no obvious signs that it was over an ethical no-go, I'm going to conclude that it's someone I don't want to collaborate with in the future.
If you can't make the effort to spend a week cleaning up loose ends, document your projects, and pass on knowledge to the rest of the team, you are certainly not someone I want to work with in the future -- much less ever consider having as a co-founder. It's just basic professionalism.
Obviously not the case if the employer asked you to do something unethical, but you need to make that clear to the rest of your team if it happened, in order to reasonably retain their respect.
Why would you accept the same case from a company? ("at will employment")
Fuck whatever kind of "professionalism" that is lol I'll keep it movin. Plenty of other people want to work with me :D
Here's the problem, you really don't know the whole situation and making such a determination without data will be problematic. You could be punishing the innocent party. Worse, your former fellow employee might use the same lack of information to conclude that you agreed with the company over perhaps their very valid reasons.
As an example, your fellow employee's health is declining (not obviously to you but that is quite common too), work is keeping them awake (devops is so fun), and then maybe their mother got cancer. A quick meeting and no hope of relief is given, and they quit. Farfetched? No, sadly. They know they can go somewhere that will understand, and where you are isn't it. They're hundreds of these things, and not one will be told to you honestly by an employer.
Years later they get back to a happy place, and you do your "don't want to collaborate". We're in an industry with a lot of introverted people so don't expect them to give some explanation for your approval.
Disrespect should be truly earned and not inferred, or as my Dad taught me: come by your hatreds honestly and with full knowledge of the why.
Is there any consideration that someone who leaves without notice should perhaps reflect upon the employer, and not only the employee?
In fact, it largely happens only because it's mandated by law.
If I have loyalty to an organization and I don't want to hurt the people who keeping that organization running, then yeah, I'll give notice but, that is a gift.
No one has ever told me that the company is going to be downsizing in two weeks; an exit interview and an escort out of the building is the only thing I've gotten.
However, at one of my jobs a COO yelled at me in front of everyone over an issue he could've resolved himself by sending out a well written email like I had done.
He thought I should just start tearing code apart to "find" a solution until 12am if that's what it took. I told him that I was not doing anything until I spoke with our vendor and that he will just have to wait until the vendor responds as 24 hours had not even passed since I sent the email. The CTO didn't even defend me. Well the next day it turns out that I had done the write thing and that the COO and friends had changed the admin settings and broke the system. No code needed to be changed like I suspected. They just needed to use the admin settings correctly.
The COO did not even apologize for yelling at me in front of everyone. On top of that he still owes me $400. So yea... Three weeks later I had an offer in hand and a vacation starting the next day that I had already paid for the month prior. What do you think I did? I gave my two weeks notice and hopped on the plane.
I can think of a time when I probably should've quit on the first day. It was right after they told me they use SVN and half of their code base was located in their content management system which was comprised of some messy jsp files some html css and a mountain of horribly written javascript (This javascript had one letter variable names everywhere that were not the result of a build tool and not simply located in for loops). I hated every second of it. Yet, I still managed to work there for a year and I gave a two week notice.
The title reminds me of Bill Burr's sketch about "You should never hit a women".
I though the default was to quit using email the evening you found a better job ?
Maybe its just the Millennial in me talking.
That said, now in most cases, everything is at-will and neither side really owes the other anything, although it is good to be polite and not burn bridges.
it's a bit like the mark twain quote: "never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."