SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Employees and employers alike have the right under at-will employment laws in almost all states to end their relationship without notice, for any reason, but the two-week rule is a widely accepted standard of workplace conduct. Now Sue Shellenbarger writes at The Wall Street Journal that employers say a growing number of workers are leaving without giving two weeks' notice.
Some bosses blame young employees who feel frustrated by limited prospects or have little sense of attachment to their workplace. But employment experts say some older workers are quitting without notice as well. They feel overworked or unappreciated after years of laboring under pay cuts and expanded workloads imposed during the recession. One employee at Dupray, a customer-service rep, scheduled a meeting and announced she was quitting, then rose and headed for the exit. She seemed surprised when the director of human resources stopped her and explained that employees are expected to give two weeks' notice. "She said, 'I've been watching 'Suits,' and this is how it happens,' " referring to the TV drama set in a law firm.
According to Shellenbarger, quitting without notice is sometimes justified. Employees with access to proprietary information, such as those working in sales or new-product development, face a conflict of interest if they accept a job with a competitor. Employees in such cases typically depart right away—ideally, by mutual agreement. It can also be best to exit quickly if an employer is abusive, or if you suspect your employer is doing something illegal.
More often, however, quitting without notice "is done in the heat of emotion, by someone who is completely frustrated, angry, offended or upset," says David Lewis, president of OperationsInc., a Norwalk, Conn., human-resources consulting firm. That approach can burn bridges and generate bad references. Phyllis Hartman says employees have a responsibility to try to communicate about what's wrong. "Start figuring out if there is anything you can do to fix it. The worst that can happen is that nobody listens or they tell you no."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:01AM
I've been in a special case of that situation. The new CEO came from a similar job at a bank, so he was keen on security. When a colleague and I lost our jobs, they revoked all our access before sending the e-mail that we had lost our jobs[1]. But over here, the law requires the company to give us three months notice (depends on hos long you've been at the company, after five years it becomes six months notice), and the owner of the company didn't want to pay us after leaving.
As a result, for three months, we had to show up at work, but had no access to do our jobs. My colleague did get to write some documentation, but I'd been writing documentation for the previous months, so I had nothing to do.
We ended up each writing a game in the notice period.
[1] That was supposed to include our VPN access, that we needed to read e-mail, including the notice that we lost our jobs. I wonder how they would have handled it if the operations guys hadn't failed to disable our VPN access.