> But now when I "give notice" and they don't even let me try to work the next 2 weeks, I'm grateful.
Life hack: Put your resignation in writing with a date in the future. In many states, if the employer attempts to move the termination date (without compensation), they will award wages until your resignation date... I've used this twice, and in both cases, I was sent home, but HR told the manager that any severance would start after my resignation date which in one case led to a really awkward call when my manager tried to get me to come back for a month after having me pack up my desk and leave.
I don’t know they’d have to award you wages, but the only alternative to that would be firing you. Some might try to do that out of spite but it would be far worse for them than you.
They'd usually have to prove they fired you with cause not because you said you quit.
i.e. if you get caught stealing or are sexually harassing your co-workers, they can still fire you. They are not however required to let you work. They can revoke access and continue to pay, they can give you a package and terminate you employment. If you don't want to take the package, they can just walk you out of the building and terminate your employment two weeks later.
I’d guess most people, in the US at least, are employed at-will and could be fired right on the spot with no cause given. The problem with that though is you could turn around and file for unemployment which might end up increasing the associated taxes for them with increased headaches.
I’d agree that most reasonable HR departments wouldn’t let it go that far but some people like to play dirty irrespective of the costs.
If you put in 2 weeks notice and you get fired on the spot its a slam dunk un employment claim. (assuming you can show that yes you gave notice and you weren't fired first) Most places would rather just pay you the 2 weeks if they really dont want you around than deal with unemployment. Lots of corporate environments firing people takes more than 2 weeks anyways, and you would just be creating extra work for HR for what would seem like no reason.
Can you explain what you mean by "slam dunk un employment claim"? Do you mean you'd be able to get unemployment benefits (which come from the state, not your company)? Or do you mean you'd have a claim against the company?
As a former lawyer (US-based), my sense is the first is true, and the second is not. As long as they're not canning you for being in a protected class, they can fire at-will employees whenever they want.
Yes, but you generally can't get unemployment for quitting. You have to get laid off or fired by the company to be eligible for unemployment benefits. It's especially easy to get benefits if you were fired without cause. There's no legal protection in cause/or no cause, but it will be the difference between an easy unemployment claim and a contested one.
Most employers get their unemployment insurance rate set by the number of people that require the service just like any other insurance. When an employee can prove they quit (probably before you started 'performance managing' for a with cause termination), then it makes it much simpler to just let them leave then to do the paperwork, eat the unemployment insurance adjustment, risk a possible 'wrongful termination' lawsuit (regardless of merit or ability to win).
Transferring their work and letting them dick around for a week is going to be considerably less work and risk then terminating them before the date. So as a general rule, when you give advance notice, in writing, there is a very good chance that they'll just let you leave on the day.
Additionally, if you fire everyone immediately when they give notice, then people stop giving notice all together, so you just come in some days and are a person short.
Yeah. Last time I looked, MA was like $1k. Just across the border, NH was more like $400. Not a fortune and doesn’t start until vacation payout is done I believe but not nothing for most. You do need to at least go through some motions of job hunting.
This is partially correct. FUTA is a federal payroll tax that in part funds unemployment insurance and is fixed and a pretty small amount. The other part, SUTA (State Unemployment TAx) is usually only fixed in the first few years of a business' existance, and then is annually adjusted by a bunch of factors including industry, unemployment claims, completeness of employer reporting and penalties for outstanding assessments. In practice, too many claims can land an employer in a situation where SUTA can go up substantially. In my state, SUTA ranges between .2% and 5.4% (of pay), so unemployment claims can be quite expensive if they result in an increase in SUTA.
> Life hack: Put your resignation in writing with a date in the future.
This sounds like such a neat way to deal with it. I wonder if it's legally valid in my jurisdiction (in Sweden.) I have never heard of it but yet again, why not?
I always do that, draft the email to my boss and hr, walk into my bosses office, send the email saying:
"I will be ending my employment with ${company} effective ${two_weeks_from_now}. I'm giving ${X} weeks notice to afford ${company} the opportunity to transition my work and knowledge to other employees as they see fit. I appreciate the opportunity ${company} has given me and wish you all the best as you continue to advance ${company mission}"
Then I say, "I'm quitting, my last day will be in ${two_weeks_from_now}" and there's already a record of how that conversation came about. No one's going to walk out and say they fired you and you're pretending to quit or strange shit like that.
No it’s not valid in Sweden (or anywhere else). The date at which your resignation starts to count is the date that your employer learns of your intent to leave. You are however free to agree on an arbitrary date with them as your last day.
It’s not the date you put in the letterhead. That would be insane.
> No it’s not valid in Sweden (or anywhere else). The date at which your resignation starts to count is the date that your employer learns of your intent to leave.
"or anywhere else" is an exceedingly broad assertion. For Canada:
> Yes, you do have to give notice of your resignation in Canada. The common law imposes a duty to provide notice of resignation on all employees.
> However, you don’t have to give two weeks’ notice of your resignation in Canada per se. Rather, you have to give a “reasonable” amount of notice of your resignation, which may be more or less than two weeks’ notice. The amount of reasonable notice an employee has to give will depend on their specific circumstances, as discussed below.
> The obligation to give reasonable notice is a general common law obligation of all employees. In Sure-Grip Fasteners Ltd. v. Allgrade Bolt & Chain Inc., [1993] 45 C.C.E.L. 276 (Ont. Gen. Div.) at pages 281-282, Justice Chapnik found: […]
I think that's not what was meant. You _can_ hand in your notice earlier than contractually necessary. If your notice period was 2 months, and you let your employer know, that you are quitting in 3 months, that's perfectly legal. Its not changing the date of the document, it's about the date of your intended departure you mention within it.
Notice periods are, as far as I know and in my experience, the _minimum_ number of weeks or months to give notice. Nothing is stopping you from giving notice earlier.
It seems like you could really harm a company by forcing them to pay you to nothing if because they don't want to start someone on a project they will definitely leave half way through.
If you continue fulfilling your responsibilities as an employee, I don't see why. If a longer planning horizon is needed, a longer notice period is the answer.
Because of resigned effective of a future date. Any termination of employment before then is either a with-cause firing or a layoff where severance is required.
Seems like an interesting idea. Give as much notice as possible and then see if they bench you until then.
Severance is often paid (in at-will employment jurisdictions) just as a way to get the departing employee to sign a document agreeing not to sue, and possibly agreeing not to disparage.
I'm not an employment lawyer (but am a former lawyer), and I would think that if someone said they were going to quit way in the future, and was then fired, they would have a pretty poor case if they tried to sue. The company would credibly claim that it was not based on impermissible discrimination or retaliation, but was just because they assumed the employee would massively slack off.
There's also the question of damages — if you were about to quit anyway, then your damages would be relatively small because it would only be the salary that would have been paid between the time you were escorted out and the time you planned to leave. It could be $100k if you're very well-paid, but that pales in comparison to what you would get in a discrimination lawsuit (which is what severance agreements are seeking to avoid).
It would also be relatively difficult to find a lawyer who would take a case with a relatively small amount on the table, and an uphill battle in terms of proof.
> Any termination of employment before then is either a with-cause firing or a layoff where severance is required.
If they're paying you until that future resignation date, it's not a firing or a layoff, is it? The part that your employer is responsible for is your salary, not providing you with things to do.
This isn’t accurate, might have worked in one-off situations but, given at-will employment, this was at best a confused HR employee trying to help, not a legal conclusion. Note the obvious edge cases
> given at-will employment, this was at best a confused HR employee trying to help
US centric advice: Most states will automatically award unemployment to the employee if they are termed before the resignation date. In some cases, a dated resignation when combined with an email chain about "how to get rid of them" it will turn into a genuine legal risk. Most US HR people will advise to just respect a reasonable resign date or offer a severance agreement to avoid risk. Source: aside doing it myself with a couple of employers, since then I've owned four companies and dealt with the aftermath from managers who think they are smarter than HR.
If it works, you win $$: why be so negative? Maybe some downsides if they make you work longer, but that is a judgement call to make depending on context.
Factually it worked twice for them, versus your theories that it shouldn’t work.
In the U.S., an employee that resigns is not entitled to severance. In this case, you would only have received severance if you had been terminated before your resignation date. If they sent you home but continued to pay you for that month, you would not have been entitled to severance.
This is correct, unless there's a reason why they should... and if they are smart, the severance will include setting the term date to the severance date.
I don't understand your comment. The only circumstances in which a resigning employee is entitled to severance is if they have an employment contract entitling then to severance in the event of a voluntary departure.
Even executives don't get that. A run of the mill employee definitely won't.
Life hack: Put your resignation in writing with a date in the future. In many states, if the employer attempts to move the termination date (without compensation), they will award wages until your resignation date... I've used this twice, and in both cases, I was sent home, but HR told the manager that any severance would start after my resignation date which in one case led to a really awkward call when my manager tried to get me to come back for a month after having me pack up my desk and leave.