Lets assume you gave notice because you're moving to a new job. I have a hard time imagining a scenario where your new employer would be OK with a multi-month delay to your start.
Upon receiving notice of intent to leave, one of my previous employers would walk you out the door same day. In their judgment, removing quitters immediately was worth the loss of organizational knowledge and team planning challenges that resulted.
Needless to say, their code was full of people papering over code no one understood anymore, duplicated features that interacted poorly, and so on.
While giving notice is polite, it's important to note that it is just a courtesy in most places, and you're providing that courtesy to something that will happily fire you with no notice if it benefits them. If you're somewhere an employer can treat you as having quit the day you provide notice, then you should give minimal notice to maximize stock vesting, benefits, etc.
So you don't need to provide "more notice (a lot more notice)" as the benefits listed just aren't real. I've replaced bullet points with numbers for ease of reference:
1. Do only the parts of your job you enjoy the most
2. Eliminate ~all stress from your job
3. Get paid the same
4. Extend your benefits for longer
5. Take unused vacation time
6. Vest more stock
7. Get your bonus
8. Leave on a positive note
9. Be thanked and appreciated by everyone
Of these the only a few are unequivocally true, and most are just false or unnecessary, or even contradictory. The true ones are (3), (4), and (6), and only if you live in a place where an employer is not permitted to terminate your employment upon notice.
Your primary goal in providing this courtesy is (8) leaving on a positive note, but if you're trying to do that then (1) and (2) are out. You're employed, you have to do your job, and if you shirk that then you're not leaving on a positive note. At the same time if you've announced you're leaving the company has no reason to continue being nice/trying to keep you.
So we're down to (5), (7), and (9). In most countries (5) is some variation of "earned income", that is you've earned that money and they have to pay you out when your employment class. In many countries sick leave is also earned income and must also be paid out. Hence (5) is unnecessary. If you aren't in such a state or country, then you're beholden to "can I be terminated immediately upon notice", in which case you're better off going on vacation, and then handing in notice.
(7) isn't going to happen once you hand in your notice. Either you've already been awarded your bonus, in which case they can't claw it back, or there's no reason for them to give you one - you've given notice so giving you a bonus isn't going to benefit them.
Finally for (9), you don't need more than 2 weeks notice. You don't really even need a week for that. This particular point feels like it's part of the "your job is your family" nonsense that is routinely exploited by employers.
There is no benefit to extended notice unless you're trying to ensure that (8) will leave you the option to return or work for the same group of people elsewhere in future.
Another point, this person has what to me is inverted priorities: they say give more notice to a bigger company than a small one. If you are leaving a company, the impact of missing an employee is inversely proportional to the size of the company.
If you quit a company, which company will find the missing employee harder: the one with 10 thousand employees, or the one with 10? Who will be more impacted by losing and engineer or artist, EA or some indie gamedev?
>In most countries (5) is some variation of "earned income", that is you've earned that money and they have to pay you out when your employment ceases. In many countries sick leave is also earned income and must also be paid out. Hence (5) is unnecessary.
Yes, but if they let you have a "last working day" and then take vacation, you're getting both your salary and your benefits (like healthcare) for that time. Depending on the circumstances--i.e. retiring or taking time off between jobs anyway--this may be the better deal. Even if they say no, you still get the money.
That's (4) I think -- extending benefits, rather than being needed to get your vacation time. It falls into where I said "you're better off going on vacation, and then handing in notice". Handing in notice pre-vacation gives them the opportunity to say "well you're resigning anyway so today is your last day" in many jurisdictions, or simply inviting pettiness: a boss just refuses to approve your vacation request after you hand in notice - it doesn't save them money to refuse it, it's just being petty.
The whole point of the article is that you benefit from giving lots of notice, but that's just not true. Say you want to quit in 8 weeks, you could give 8 weeks notice today, or you could give 2 weeks notice in 6 weeks. In both cases you get employee benefits for the same amount of time, you have the same opportunity to use vacation time, etc. But in the former case you also have the option in many places for them to just say "ok, today is your last day" - I _think_ in less anti-worker areas such a dismissal would not be valid (e.g. the company can stop you entering the premises, but would have to consider you still employed, _or_ they would have to report you as being terminated rather than resigning which has legal implications for them), but even then you aren't getting any real benefit from the early notice.
Honestly the only people who gain anything from you giving advanced notice is your employer, and these are the same employers who can (and do) fire you essentially without notice.
This is highly subjective as in it depends tremendously on the role, employer, and the given employee:employer relationship.
At one startup where I played workaholic for several years establishing substantial leverage and dependency on my presence, I didn't just give heaps of notice; I plain asked the CEO how to gracefully exit the company.
Right thing to do, yeah?
Except he disastrously mishandled the situation by insisting I stay "until the end". Neglecting to take advantage of the opportunity to tell me exactly for how long and with who the knowledge transfers should occur. Instead it just turned into a sort of pissing match where leadership was acting like they owned my autonomy/called my bluff, insisted on paying me for a month+ without coming in "for me to think about it". It was just a ridiculous calamity on their part, culminating in my leaving anyways without any transfer at all. (They eventually went bankrupt after burning >$100M, go figure)
In hindsight that experience alone discouraged me from ever letting myself work hard into such a role again.
And if you're not in some high-impact, difficult-to-replace, bus-factor role, giving notice really isn't all that important IMO.
I've generally given a lot of notice as an IC, 2-3 months in some cases. and I have to say, I think it's not been appreciated, not even once. I've tried to spend the time wrapping things up, communicating my tacit knowledge to my coworkers, and writing documentation for things that I've done and created and am responsible for; I'm fairly certain that no one has given my opinions and thoughts any more than a cursory amount of attention.
Now, I absolutely loathe the modern corporate culture, which is happy to escort you out of the building the moment your employment is terminated, without giving you a chance to even say goodbye to your colleagues, who you might have been working with extensively for years. It's deeply traumatic and it contributes to an overall sense of fear and "screw teamwork, it's everyone for themselves".
But now when I "give notice" and they don't even let me try to work the next 2 weeks, I'm grateful. I don't want my coworkers to ignore or patronize me while I sit idle or do make-work. I don't want to have to put on a show about how wonderful the company and team are, and why I'm leaving anyways. Nor do I want to expose my true feelings to my co-workers and infect them with my bad attitude--even if the writing is on the wall for the entire enterprise. It's like a breakup: the best thing for everyone is to make it clean and crisp, say "it's not you, it's me", make a sincere statement to the effect of "let's be friends", and then see each other roughly never again.
I completely agree. I've been asked to stay on an extra week or two and I think it was a terrible decision. Nobody really cared or paid attention in hand off meetings (I'd like to think careful documentation was later appreciated when someone had to take those things on later) and I was interested in moving on.
I completely agree. The part about infecting people with my attitude is especially relevant. It's normal that we talk. And when they ask "why?", it feels awkward. If I tell them all the reasons, it will influence their perception of their situation (which might be quite positive) and I prefer not to do that. But if I avoid answering, I will be perceived as dishonest or hiding something. So usually I invent some excuse so that nobody feels bad.
You don't need to lie. There are plenty of generic reasons you can give why you're leaving that probably even have the virtue of having some truth to them. (Was time to make a change.) No reason to get into a blow-by-blow of why now and what all the things that made the situation less and less tolerable were.
It's not lying. It just not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
ADDED: Companies can also obviously be in a place where at least some of your reasons are so blindingly obvious they don't need to be stated.
“Love it here, just looking for a new challenge” or “Love it here, but I couldn’t pass this opportunity up” have gotten me far. You can always be more honest behind closed doors if you want.
I'm impressed (and a bit envious) you were able to say that first part. I wish I'd worked at place where I could honestly say the same.
Every place I've left, the best I could muster with a straight face was a bland tautological platitude — something like, "Oh, you know, just going to do something different."
I don't exactly have tons of experience quitting jobs or ending relationships, but I've never understood the relentless navel-gazing of "why" that seems to come along with most people quitting their jobs. And, besides, what's the point of expounding on how things could be better (in an "exit interview" or otherwise), when everyone knows all that feedback will have no impact?
It seems to me the practical part of the conversation is simply, "I'm ending our relationship." And then — everyone moves forward from there.
It's mostly just a ritual. After you've gotten past whatever pressures and inducements your management offers (or not) for you to stay, the exit interview is you pretending to seriously answer the "why" and HR pretending to care.
> And, besides, what's the point of expounding on how things could be better (in an "exit interview" or otherwise), when everyone knows all that feedback will have no impact?
Many employers do listen to exit interview feedback, and if themes are consistent, changes do get made. Have seen it happen more than once, although it usually takes multiple departures or the loss of a key person.
Of course not all employers are like this, but if you‘re willing to give yours the benefit of the doubt, it can be worth paying it forward to your colleagues by giving your feedback in a professional way.
> Many employers do listen to exit interview feedback, and if themes are consistent, changes do get made. Have seen it happen more than once, although it usually takes multiple departures or the loss of a key person.
My anecdata seems to confirm this. I told my employer I love my job but I'm leaving solely because of their RTO policies. They changed them after I left.
It is still not the truth. I am not saying you are obliged to say the truth if the is unsafe or if no one will listen. But lets not pretend this is actually honest communication. It is not.
I once shared an office with someone in order to take on their work because they were retiring early. I got/had to hear about all of their gripes with our employer and within six months I was in complete agreement with them :)
> And when they ask "why?", it feels awkward. If I tell them all the reasons, it will influence their perception of their situation (which might be quite positive)
I find this on itself to be a dysfunction. In well functioning team, they would be able to guess, because they would know your general opinions. And their positive opinions would be known too.
As in, this happens only because the communication within the team or within the corporation is dysfunctional and people dont talk in the first place.
Just lie, but you don't normally have to really lie. Is there ever one single reason for leaving? You don't have to tell them the worst version of your decision.
Like most things, it depends. I've given employers no time up to 4 weeks. Smaller ones will definitely receive more grace if they have been good to me. And, when I was an employer I tried to do the same for others.
Another note is that I'm always succession planning. Document, share what I'm doing, etc... I learned early on that if I couldn't be replaced, I also couldn't be promoted.
> I learned early on that if I couldn't be replaced, I also couldn't be promoted.
Nailed this on the head.
At the same time, the extra work this requires is often not appreciated by management either - I've seen some (admittedly poor) managers comment on lower productivity due to the documentation efforts.
It may not be appreciated by management in terms of someone saying “wow, your documentation was incredible, here’s that raise/promotion.” But the people who interact with your documentation will appreciate it, which raises your stature in the organization long term.
And management priorities change over time, it’s not uncommon for companies to emphasize documentation more as they mature.
> I learned early on that if I couldn't be replaced, I also couldn't be promoted.
Even as someone who has zero interest in being promoted, I think this is good practice. It's part of helping to maintain a healthy organization. If anyone is actually indispensable, that's a very dangerous situation for the team and the company.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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: […]
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.
I've never given less than a month's notice, and the notice has always been tied to the end date of whatever project or current workload I happen to have. My direct bosses have always expressed appreciation for this, but then again, I've only ever left a company once because I was dissatisfied working there.
Culture and relationships are a two way street, and you are always responsible for your own part in building it. You might have a shit boss or work for a shit company and it's not going to end well, and if that's the case and there's nothing you can do, then all that's left is to look out for yourself. I wouldn't ever advocate for that to be the default position, though.
Maybe not. I'm in the US and this is generally my practice as well. Unless I'm dying to get out or have other circumstances encouraging a quick exit, I offer a month at least. Sometimes more.
Nope, midwest US. Two weeks notice is social etiquette as a minimum to avoid burning a bridge, so to speak. There's nothing against giving further notice.
Thinking back on it, though, I would absolutely not give further notice if I was only doing "busy" work (as someone suggested elsewhere). I try to maintain a good relationship with my employers as a professional courtesy. Putting out notice beyond what active work I have would, I think, send a signal that I'm looking to collect an easy pay check and disconnect. Lining up my resignation with my active work sends a message that I am still invested in contributing to my team's success, and that's a good way to have people be more than happy to give you referrals or networking opportunities in the future.
That's interesting. In my experience, I've somehow managed to score referrals despite daring to give less than 2 weeks notice and my previous bosses still recognize my investment in the company's success. It's rather amusing that the midwest isn't more forgiving when it comes to shorter notices, or that an employee is instantly branded as a "bridge-burner".
As with all social etiquette, it's a guideline, not a law. The outcome depends entirely on your relationship with your boss and what kind of position the team is left in when you leave.
Don't you have it defined in your contract typically? It is in the UK. Two weeks is about the minimum it'd be for a professional job, often more with seniority or time at a company (i.e. contact will say +1 week for every two years or whatever).
Most employment positions in the US are at-will, meaning either party is legally allowed to terminate at any point for no reason given, barring legal protections against discussion and retaliation.
It's different if you're a contractor (i.e. not an employee but hired for a specific contractor term) or in a union (not an issue for most software engineers). My experience with both is indirect.
Not the parent, but I have always given long notice periods in the US. Typically 3-4 weeks.
In all cases, they have been appreciated, and it gave me the opportunity to wrap up projects.
In several cases(the previous three jobs), I have been retained in a 1099 capacity at rates that far exceed my salary(3-5x) for consulting on projects and ongoing expertise of archaic systems. Typically that arrangement winds down to very little work after the first year.
In all of these scenarios, my manager was aware I was looking for months before I put in my notice. My reason for moving is a combination of environment(outgrown the scale of the company, or looking to relocate) and pay.
Totally agree. Two weeks for knowledge transfer should be it. Remember that most leadership view all engineers as replaceable cogs. Just wrap up what you can and loop others into the things that can't and move on with life. Big companies probably don't want you around from a liability. Small companies want the knowledge transfer because you have "blind-sided" them. (Despite asking for a raise for the last two years and told no chance.)
My experience is that two weeks is probably about right most of the time--especially for ICs. The company expects it as the norm. And it's either enough time to do a reasonable handoff or no sensible length of time is going to be enough. (And I'll always answer the odd "help!" question for the coming month or two.) Go much beyond that and you're in this odd extended winding down situation where you can't really take anything new on and you're increasingly checked out. And, in a physical office environment, you're probably also increasingly just a distraction.
I gave 6 weeks on my last one to a fanng, Never again. That was when the project I was working on was slated to finish, and I continued working on it until then. I but it was a bit unexpected for me and I had a 4 day weekend scheduled to take my kids on a school trip.
Came back on Monday, incompetent fuckers had locked me out and terminated me as a no call no show. lol, uh, it's in the fucking time off tool you fucks. The thing that really sucked was that I was a high preforming employee, I canceled a promotion review to give notice. 7 years in and some jerkoff needs your seat and 6 weeks isn't appreciated. The got me reconnected after a couple days and then my manager never talked to me again. that was a long three weeks there at the end.
Yep this is more like the real word experience. Never be "nice" to companies, they don't give a shit about you. I'm not even bitter or anything like that is just the reality. Your coworkers will forget about you in a week. Work is transitional, don't make it your life.
One time I gave 4 week notice and my lead HR person (~2000 person company) who I have never spoke to before called me very upset and yelled at me for several minutes about how rude I was being by doing 4 weeks instead of 2.
Something I realized. After you give notice, at most, the business needs about a week to decide what to do with the work you were handling. In tech, most projects can be deferred, and most services can go into KTLO.
After the week is done to figure that stuff out - no one really cares about you anymore. There is likewise a tacit assumption that you won’t deliver anything again (why would you?). As such it’s usually best to let someone out the door after a week.
Typically when I give notice, I simply state that the employer can do whatever over the next 2 weeks. 70% of the time, when given the choice, they will decide on a fast transition of 1 week. There hardly is anything to do the second week.
On the day I give notice, there is a bit if a shock and a "what are we gonna do now?" attitude. On the second day, word has got around and everyone wants to know where you're going, etc. On the third day, i brief whoever will take over my job. On the fourth day I am no longer invited to meetings or really have anything to do for the next several days until I leave.
In practice, even two weeks is more than enough for your role to be taken over by someone. I really see little value in giving more notice that that for either the employer or employee.
After you give notice, at most, the business needs about a week to decide what to do with the work you were handling. In tech, most projects can be deferred, and most services can go into KTLO.
Ideally, sure. In real life the employee needs to do a brain dump of handover documents because no one writes anything down.
> I've generally given a lot of notice as an IC, 2-3 months in some cases. and I have to say, I think it's not been appreciated, not even once.
I personally think it's the right thing to do, not for the company, but for your colleagues. If staying longer can help your colleagues to take over your stuff, some will be grateful and will remember it if your paths cross again.
IDK. All my colleagues leave after 2-3 weeks, sometimes less. It's just how things are done. My last employer moved my end date so the could claw back several hundred to a thousand off my last pay check, after I stayed a bit longer.
I know now I might have been able to fight this, and may have done that knowing what I know now. On the other hand it might not be worth the effort.
If you're wondering how, I think I didn't "earn" vacation until the end of the month, and was technically using "borrowed vacation". I stayed with that company for 7 years... I can't think of any other reason for them to end my employment two days early, right before the end of the month.
> I absolutely loathe the modern corporate culture[...]
If you've been on the other side of that - having employees sabotage or steal in the process of leaving - you'd at least understand it. Not many people do that, but it's always the bad apples who ruin it for everybody.
I gave several months notice one time. They didn't use any of the time to onboard someone else, and afterwards talked about how I left them high and dry.
From now on I'm giving 2 weeks and getting the fuck out of there.
Yeah exactly. The experiences around me agree with you: once someone is "out" most managers will look to "eliminate" that person from the group ASAP. I've even seen someone being asked not to come in from tomorrow, which shocked everyone since that person was well liked, a good performer - even had multiple patents associated with him. It was just a power trip from that manager.
This is terrible advice. Great that it has worked for the author but it does not mean it's a good idea for everyone. 2 weeks is the standard and as long as you give that you maintain good relations. Most people are not as valuable or important as they like to think they are. I have seen very important people leave / fired and things still go on. (Twitter is still working - isn't it?) Once you tell that you are leaving, everybody's attitude towards you changes. You want to minimize that awkward period. There's nothing to be gained by staying longer than 2 weeks. If you have stock vesting, wait until stock vests before giving 2 weeks notice.
Two weeks is all most recruiters have ever offered me, and some did so begrudgingly. Which is weird because if I say yes that actually makes me a worse hire.
Recruiters don’t like people who want >2 weeks because it adds risk that you will renege on the deal, which means they lose out on their payday. But the recruiter isn’t the other party in the negotiation, the hiring manager is.
So don’t negotiate start date until you have an offer and are talking to the hiring manager. Save it to the end and you can say “well, I’m still not 100% sure about this offer, but I think this would work if you could push my start date out a bit…”
Interesting, I was able to get a couple months when I switched jobs a while back. I think recruiters probably figure the longer the window, the more chance you go do something else instead.
In my experience it's really situational and depends on the relationship with co-workers more than managers. I've given as much as a month at places I liked and where knowledge transfer will be useful to those who will pick up my slack. Others, I simply said "I'm done" and spent the remaining days posting GIFs and XKCDs on Slack
There’s a lot of merit to taking a week or two beyond the standard. 2 weeks isn‘t a lot of time to hand off all your work, go through the usual HR bureaucracy, and make sure you have contact info for anyone you might want to stay in touch with after leaving.
If it’s an amicable departure 3-4 weeks can be a lot less stressful for everyone.
6-8 weeks is kinda weird though, unless you‘re extremely senior and on critical path for a lot of things, or you‘re using up accrued PTO.
> 6-8 weeks is kinda weird though, unless you‘re extremely senior and on critical path for a lot of things, or you‘re using up accrued PTO.
If you're a leader in a team, definitely give more notice. It's the professional thing to do. Something that the post -doesn't- say is that you should have a transition plan written down before you tell your boss, just in case you get cut off.
Of course they can still summarily kick you out the door, but it's a chance for you as a leader to do right by the team.
And 2 weeks could suddenly become a lot shorter. I gave 2 weeks notice once, then had a death in the family (covered by bereavement leave) and then got sick. My 10 business days of handover ended up going down to about 4-5.
I have resigned for two different jobs where I was the highest tech leader, reporting to the CEO (basically CTO role without the title). Both times I gave 1 month of notice. Both times all the "transition" work was done during the first 2 weeks, and afterwards, I basically sat at meeting listening without say (I pushed for my "replacement" to be the one making the decisions as if I wasn't there) and even the CEO asked me to stay at home in one of the two jobs.
My thought is that if that worked for me for 2 weeks, it should also be more than enough for an IC.
I don't know. Not to offend you but in general I consider leadership roles to be more easily replaceable than IC ones. Fundamentally, it's the ICs that usually have all the intricate knowledge of the details. That is something I'd argue cannot be handed over in just two weeks, in particular to just anyone.
On the other hand, the leadership folks I interact with always make only super high level decisions. Rarely does it get intricate. It's more important to know how to quickly assess the big picture and how to communicate. All lot of what a leader does and makes them uniquely leaders is not something that's based on acquiring company specific and product and infra specific knowledge accumulated across several years.
I rarely care if my manager leaves beyond the fact that I have to build trust with someone new. But ultimately they aren't super in the weeds on anything mission critical.
An engineer that can jump into an incident and immediately identify the problem on a code path because they have worked on it or around it intimately at some point does make a difference, but also just having a detailed mental model of how the system pieces interact is super crucial. Bus factor is a thing, even though it rarely is catastrophic. Lead time can help here.
Of course leaders leaving also is a challenge, but it's because of their unique charm, ability to grasp issues quickly and make sane decisions. But none of this can be transferred to a new guy, in 2 or 4 weeks or 8.
It is terrible advice and especially if you are an at-will employee. 2 weeks is fine, but as others have mentioned, most of the time you get put into a hermetically sealed jar once you give notice.
I gave 4 months notice once, at a 15-person company where I was the lead of a 3-person team responsible for everything technology at the company. My boss was the sort who would tell people to leave immediately, and happily pay the 2 weeks they intended of notice. But I was critical to the functioning of the company, and I was able to hire and onboard a successor. I continued consulting part-time for a while past the end of my employment, it was good for everybody. I've never worked at a job where I would afford the company such a luxury of my time.
Agree with others that it's bad advice. At my last job I gave about 5 weeks notice which my manager convinced me to extend to 6 weeks. I was a manager and timing at the end of the year was not ideal due to performance review schedules and holidays.
Never again. Everything was much more dragged out. Lots of idle time. Lots more "so I hear you're leaving" conversations. Next time, I might do one week notice since this seems to have become a lot more common.
I've seen people give management 1-2 months notice and only make it broadly known for the last 2 weeks. Obviously depends on how much you trust management, but it can avoid that awkwardness.
A note on the last paragraph about being a “lazy engineer”: this shouldn’t be a factor. Being lazy is subjective and the same engineer can be seen differently depending on the management, team, moment, etc.
LOL, I tried that at Apple, was immediately made to pack my stuff after watch of a security guard and escorted off premises. As if I couldn't copy their stuff first and give notice later if that was my intent.
Now obviously, in a mom and pop shop, I would discuss my desire to leave before I even started looking and help find/train my replacement, while they would likewise help me find a new job that better fits my life situation. But that's just not how corporate America works.
Absolutely. I've been at places where I was escorted out five minutes after I gave my notice, and at places where 10 years later they still call me every 8 months or so.
Same thing happened to me - told my boss on a Friday that I had received a job offer with a 55% pay raise and was probably going to take it, so we should think about off-boarding. Later that day my admin rights to the gitlab org were removed, was told that "it was a mistake", and was fired the following Monday.
They also took my $20k bonus that I was supposed to receive months earlier and used it as a carrot on a stick to get me to sign a bunch of legal paperwork releasing all my rights. At least I got the much needed money. I was really underpaid there.
I also lost my best friend who also worked there that decided to side with my boss and the company. lol It was a bad time.
I love the "it was a mistake" "we're looking into it" "not sure what happened..." responses.
Not even just in this context, but in the context of everything. Corporate America is absolutely about deception and politics now, it isn't about working at all.
The best friend violated one of the fundamental rules of being a worker. They are:
1. Your employer is NEVER your friend. You might be friendly with them but they will replace you in a second so it's best to have the right mindset from the start.
2. Every important correspondence needs to be in writing. If you asked your boss in person whether you could take vacation days, follow up and have them confirm it in an email.
The friend violated rule 1 and in the end it won't have mattered once they get laid off.
Yep. This is how it works in any corporation that has higly sensitive secrets -- regulatory, risk, trade, or otherwise -- that they are highly keen on keeping safe. As soon as you signal your intent to quit, if you were privy to any of those, you are a risk, and the priority is getting you off-boarded and your access revoked ASAP. That's just how it goes
^ this is it. The advice of this post is so dumb. Unless you have a good relationship with your manager and your skip and maybe skip skip you’re looking for trouble by giving any notice.
I think there’s a kernel of truth in this post, it does make the correct observation that 2 weeks is not always the correct time. I think it’s deeper than that, there are multiple correct times that are incompatible with each other.
This is because there are multiple ways you are integrated into the company and the correct wind-down period for each is different. A few months to find and train a replacement, a few weeks to document all your organizational knowledge, a few days to say goodbye to your colleagues - and for companies with valuable secrets it’s obviously desirable that your access to their information is revoked instantaneously.
Ultimately, for a senior software engineer, quitting is just complicated. I think if you want to try a variable-length notice of resignation you need to find someone in the chain of command you trust to be level-headed and pragmatic, approach them with your thoughts of leaving, and (matching their level-headedness and pragmatism) discuss how to make your departure as successful and effective for the company as possible - maybe you start documenting knowledge now, wind down day-to-day fire-fighting responsibilities a week from now, and formally announce your two weeks notice a week after that.
But you have to go into that discussion prepared to roll with the decisions they make, all the way from “immediate dismissal and escort from the building” to “they do not want you to quit and try to offer you more money or different responsibilities”. If that gives you trepidation, maybe it’s better to stick to the business standard of two weeks notice. It’s not optimal, but it is well-trodden ground.
I've given two weeks notice to employers I didn't like, and had immediate layoffs from employers I liked exceptionally, so I don't feel I should have any obligation in that regard except to myself. I'll the factors that the author mentions and plan ahead (like, taking vacation or exercising options if I care to), but negotiate the rest to my benefit.
Based on the article and some comments here, I realize it could be quite valuable to resign early in the month--like, in the first week. For my jobs (in the US), if they take the resignation and walk me out the door immediately, my health insurance would still be in force until the end of the month.
My direct experience is that its important to have a week of vacation in-between jobs, just to clear my mind and prepare for the new work. I had an employer who found it urgent that I start ASAP. I tried to negotiate away from their insistence, but eventually gave in to their request. It was the worst starting week ever in terms of my focus and comfort with the new job. Might have been better if I'd taken it as the bad sign that it was and declined their offer.
Given the recent round of layoffs when employee access was terminated overnight with no warning or conversation, I think employees should treat the employers the same. Now, I am not saying you just stop showing up one fine day but I am merely saying that I would give my notice, do my 2 weeks and leave. I wont spend time writing any docs for knowledge transfer (been there done that and honestly no one cared) but I will try to wrap up stuff I was working on only because I usually care about what I do.
Poland has 3 months for some cases. It is unusual in the rest of the world.
In Romania you give 2 weeks notice as an IC and 4 weeks as a manager. It can be shorter if the company agrees, but it cannot be longer by law: you can tell them in advance if you want, they cannot force you to stay if you don't.
It really depends on the worker, in my experience, and their approach to the situation.
I had one person who gave a full year's notice, so that we could hire, train, and integrate the new worker before she left. It was glorious and resulted in zero down time.
I have had another who gave one month's notice, and spent the entire time being toxic. Digging out from under that took the better part of three years. The overlap for technical knowledge was just simply not worth the headaches in the team.
It's highly subjective, but it really does depend on the person, in absence of a clear "they're out immediately policy". But as a manager, my preference is to select a date roughly one week out from the notice and use that as the exit day. That way the worker can close any relationships they have, positively, but if they go sour there isn't really enough time to screw up the rest of the team.
In the context of your statement, we only hear one side of the argument. Remember that there is always a second perspective. I know that I have had folks who I have told to just go the same day they gave notice who tell their friends that I'm an uncaring asshat. The reality is that I fully expected them to be toxic in their remaining time.
I could see this happening in a project based environment or with someone who has a long term plan to pivot away from work(travel/family/having kids/etc). If you're working on something pretty big, you might be willing to see it through, and quit before moving on to the next thing.
I wouldn't assume they were planning on a new job immediately. Could be maternity/paternity leave, a plan to sail around the world, whatever.
Could also be an in demand skillset. If you get interest every week, you're probably not worried about being able to find work in 10 months or whatever.
>you're probably not worried about being able to find work in 10 months or whatever.
Which carries some risk. If you've had a dream to sail around the world, hike the Appalachian Trail, etc. and you have some decent money in the bank, it may be the right call. But you can also return to a more challenging employment environment.
I worked for a systems integrator that developed a turnkey software system for a client. It was a massive project (a systems migration) and ran for 3 years until handover. I was the lead on the project.
A couple of years later, I left my employer and joined a startup. 10-11 months later, the startup was looking to cut its burn rate and the CEO asked me to look for a job outside as revenues were not coming in as planned. He did promise me one thing. I could come back and join them after they became cash positive. He expected this to happen in 12-18 months. I trusted the CEO.
By pure coincidence, the client I worked several years ago was completely exiting operations from one of their operating locations (employees were offered to move to another city or leave with severance pay). The entire team that we had handed over the new turnkey system was being let go and none of the opted to move to a different city.
I applied for the job and got it. I told the management (they were from the other city) that I will de-risk the transition for them completely since I knew the system like the back of my hand and laid out one condition. I will stay for 2 years and will need a replacement to join in the 2nd year (there were some intricacies in the system that had daily, weekly, monthly and yearly processes) and I wanted my replacement to be trained on all steps. So, a year of overlap was justified. The hiring manager and the division VP, both interviewed me and agreed to this.
I did my job true to my conscience. As planned, I let them know at the end of the first year that a replacement needs to be brought in. A lateral hire came in as my replacement and I trained him and completed the knowledge transfer.
I quit after the second year as originally planned. My startup CEO rehired me back into their company which was now revenue-generating and cash positive. I joined in a senior leadership position.
That was one of the most intricate knowledge transfer of my career and I have been very happy. It wouldn't have been possible without the various parties trusting each other.
Someone on my team just gave a 1-year notice a couple months ago. She hasn't lined up the next gig, and won't start seriously looking until later this year. She has more than enough cushion to cover a gap, and she feels some loyalty to the team to make it a seamless transition (she's been here quite a long time).
This is sometimes done as a security concern to keep employees from swiping data or causing havoc. An employer may also assume that an employee with 2 weeks left will have tanking productivity, so why keep them around? The good employees will try to wrap things up and do knowledge transfer, but this certainly isn't going to be the majority of people.
The part where the employee has self-selected themselves as a risk. Lots of the major companies have capability to identify when an employee is downloading tons of data and files, but for the less sophisticated ones, you pretty much just have to look out for motive, and an employee giving notice is probably disgruntled...which is at least a little bit of motive.
In the US, it's generally considered important to the economy that employees have good job mobility. There's plenty of stories of awful employers / managers; so job mobility is generally considered how workers protect themselves.
In general, because workers can pretty much leave whenever they want, employers need to make sure there's good financial incentives and good working conditions. Some employers will provide things like retention bonuses, stock plans tied to staying employed for a certain length, or other incentives that employees give up when they quit.
As far as a mandatory 3 month notice period: As an American, the few times I've been in a "bad" job, I've just wanted to leave. A 3 month period would just make me miserable. I'd rather have some kind of financial incentive to stay to a certain date.
If you get fired in Switzerland, your employer gives you a notice period of 3 months as well. Which is nice because it's plenty of time to find another job.
I thought it was well known that employment law and customs differ greatly between US and Europe.
For example the difficulty in firing someone in France was a plot device in "Emily in Paris". In most states in the US you can be fired with immediate effect from a non-government job at any time, for any reason, or no reason at all.
> My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal?
You're not even required to give two weeks, though that's widely considered to be a courteous thing to do. If it's employment at will (as most jobs are in the United States), you can put down your tools and walk out the door with no notice of any kind. The other side of that coin is that the employer can fire you/lay you off, also with no notice.
> You can ALWAYS just put down your tools and walk out the door.
Not if you've signed a contract which says otherwise, which of course would make it not "at-will" employment.
"At-will" applies to both the employer and the employee. Either can terminate it without notice.
"At-will means that an employer can terminate an employee at any time for any reason, except an illegal one, or for no reason without incurring legal liability. Likewise, an employee is free to leave a job at any time for any or no reason with no adverse legal consequences."
> My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal?
How is it legal for this not to be the case? We have constitutional laws against enslavement or indentured servitude here. Nobody can force you to work if you don’t want to. You can quit right now if you want to.
What happens if you stop showing up to work in Switzerland? Do you go to prison?
If I sent you a link about a person's funeral to show a person had been born, would you not accept that either? The article is about the funeral of the order.
What do you think happens if you violate a court order? That's the threat behind violating the order of a judge. That it didn't happen doesn't mean my statement was incorrect. If they had actually left in contempt of the order, I would have said it did happen rather than it can happen.
What happens in Europe if you're supposed to work out 3 months notice and you stop showing up:
- you stop getting paid.
- you probably will have a hard time dealing with your former employers if you need something from them.
- they think you're a dick, and tell other people, if asked, what an asshole you are.
- potentially if they have nothing better to do, they get a lawyer to write you a threatening letter, then do nothing.
Nobody cares enough to go tell other people. Just try to picture the super awkward conversation between executives about and IC who resigned and then did noting during the notice period. In fact, they'd probably do the same.
I have never understood this "slavery" argument. It's not enslavement, it's fulfilling a contract. They won't put you in jail if you don't show up, you're simply in breach of contract.
It's like if you're a freelance and you accept a project. They can't force you to work on the project until completed, but they can certainly levy financial penalties against you if you don't.
> They can't force you to work on the project until completed, but they can certainly levy financial penalties against you if you don't.
There are very few circumstances in the US in which an employer can do that. It is considered wage theft, which in many states is a criminal offense that pierces the corporate veil. If you worked hours you get paid for those hours and the company can't avoid paying you (with fees or whatnot).
If you are forced to work because if you don't then you will be fined for breach of contract, then that is indentured servitude with extra steps. That is illegal everywhere in the US after the 13th amendment. That's why in the US employment contracts are generally enforced with rewards (aka golden handcuffs) rather than punishments.
Does that mean that any contracted work is indentured servitude? That sounds really broad. If I hire you to build a website, and you bail out halfway through and the liquidated damage clause kicks in, I don't think that makes you my indentured servant.
I was most likely confusing with "financial penalties", mostly it means not paying you after you stop working, and in some specific circumstances you can sue for damages. They can't fine you.
There generally aren’t financial penalties of any sort in those cases, except that you just don’t get paid the full potential value of the contract. You are generally paid hourly for the work that you do in a freelance gig (if it is an hourly contract) and paid a bonus on completion. If you fail to complete there is no bonus. Or in the case of a fixed price contract you are given a small amount upfront, and the full payment upon completion. You are never penalized for breaking contract—-you just don’t get paid the final amount.
It's only 3 months if you've worked for over 10 years at the same place (or you have a different contractual agreement of course). Otherwise it's a week during the probation period (usually 3 to 6 months), 1 month the first year and 2 months between 2 and 10 years.
Also it's symmetrical. Switzerland is "at will" (in the sense that they can lay you off at any time for any reason), but they have to follow the same notice period. In essence this is mandatory minimum severance.
I once cut my holiday short so that I could have more time to pass on knowledge about my projects. I left everything documented and up-to-date. Nobody gave me much attention and a year later a new employee was asking me to come by and give a hand.
- accounts locked moments before the layoff announcement.
- kept on payroll until the next month, so we'd get another month of benefits
- given about 6.5 weeks of severance
- allowed to keep my computer
It was really nice of them.
My only sadness is that there was no chance to say goodbyes, which sucked because we had a wonderful team. I finally realized this downside of team building.
Speaking as a manager who has managed numerous people through their exit as well as a job changer.... I have to say I disagree with the advice to give extended notice.
Proper notice (in US at least) without severe mitigating circumstances is two weeks and that's what you get. If the employer wants to it to be less then so be it. FWIW I've changed job 5-6 times over my professional career and every single time it's been a cordial exit where I've worked out my final two weeks.
As the employee submitting your notice - have your ducks-in-a-row before turning in your notice as it maximizes your chance for a smooth exit.
>As the employee submitting your notice - have your ducks-in-a-row before turning in your notice as it maximizes your chance for a smooth exit.
Right. If you have vesting events, expected bonus payouts, etc. wait until after those happen before giving notice as opposed to just assuming the employer will keep you on the payroll as an employee for those two weeks.
If you gave two weeks notice and got terminated immediately to prevent you from benefiting from something that would have vested in that two week period, you have an excellent legal case. Very few businesses of any reasonable size would pull that stunt, it isn't worth the headache. Some very small businesses might try it, because they may not have competent legal counsel to warn them away.
Same experience as many here for me when leaving two companies with a quite long but somehow standard 3 month notice here in France: it felt nice to give my managers/coworkers some time, but overall it wasn't useful. Most of the 2 first months was "as usual" and the real information sharing was done somewhere during the last month. The last week or two were absolutely useless for me and others, as it's just wandering around without any precise task, and everyone being like "oh, you're still here?"
Nobody gave this person this advice because it is bad advice, period.
Give your contractual notice, whether thats 2 weeks in the US, or a month or 3 months in the UK or whatever and be prepared to actually leave at the end of it.
Any other advice is actually harmful to the majority of people.
There is no contractual notice required to be given in the US.
72 hours notice in some states if you want to be paid out for everything they owe you on the spot.
But otherwise I give them about as much notice as they would give me: at 4:59PM on Friday I send an email to HR informing them that today was my last day.
IANAL, but I don't think that a contract can force you to give a particular amount of notice no matter what (I think that would be considered "unconscionable"). But I imagine a contract could specify that if you don't give a certain amount of notice, you won't get severance or similar.
Severance is “bribe” money: it is dangled to people being laid off in return for them signing a paper stating that they give up all rights to sue the company.
Severance is never paid unless you sign away your rights.
There is no contractual requirement for severance.
When I worked for a Microsoft contractor in 2015, the owners took it very personally whenever someone wanted to leave. If you gave any notice they would accept it without question, but a couple of days later security would suddenly show up and escort you out of the building. That taught me that when I do give notice to prepare to be let go immediately, have everything wrapped up and ready to go.
This is terrible advice, the company will never give you a heads up if they are going to fire you. Do what's best for you. Keeping a good relationship with your current employer comes second.
The company doesn't care, but your manager and you team might. It is maintaining those relationships that works to your benefit in the future. Burning bridges just because you can is a pretty reliable way of limiting your future career prospects, at least in your local area. Word gets around.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 518 ms ] threadNeedless to say, their code was full of people papering over code no one understood anymore, duplicated features that interacted poorly, and so on.
So you don't need to provide "more notice (a lot more notice)" as the benefits listed just aren't real. I've replaced bullet points with numbers for ease of reference:
Of these the only a few are unequivocally true, and most are just false or unnecessary, or even contradictory. The true ones are (3), (4), and (6), and only if you live in a place where an employer is not permitted to terminate your employment upon notice.Your primary goal in providing this courtesy is (8) leaving on a positive note, but if you're trying to do that then (1) and (2) are out. You're employed, you have to do your job, and if you shirk that then you're not leaving on a positive note. At the same time if you've announced you're leaving the company has no reason to continue being nice/trying to keep you.
So we're down to (5), (7), and (9). In most countries (5) is some variation of "earned income", that is you've earned that money and they have to pay you out when your employment class. In many countries sick leave is also earned income and must also be paid out. Hence (5) is unnecessary. If you aren't in such a state or country, then you're beholden to "can I be terminated immediately upon notice", in which case you're better off going on vacation, and then handing in notice.
(7) isn't going to happen once you hand in your notice. Either you've already been awarded your bonus, in which case they can't claw it back, or there's no reason for them to give you one - you've given notice so giving you a bonus isn't going to benefit them.
Finally for (9), you don't need more than 2 weeks notice. You don't really even need a week for that. This particular point feels like it's part of the "your job is your family" nonsense that is routinely exploited by employers.
There is no benefit to extended notice unless you're trying to ensure that (8) will leave you the option to return or work for the same group of people elsewhere in future.
If you quit a company, which company will find the missing employee harder: the one with 10 thousand employees, or the one with 10? Who will be more impacted by losing and engineer or artist, EA or some indie gamedev?
Yes, but if they let you have a "last working day" and then take vacation, you're getting both your salary and your benefits (like healthcare) for that time. Depending on the circumstances--i.e. retiring or taking time off between jobs anyway--this may be the better deal. Even if they say no, you still get the money.
The whole point of the article is that you benefit from giving lots of notice, but that's just not true. Say you want to quit in 8 weeks, you could give 8 weeks notice today, or you could give 2 weeks notice in 6 weeks. In both cases you get employee benefits for the same amount of time, you have the same opportunity to use vacation time, etc. But in the former case you also have the option in many places for them to just say "ok, today is your last day" - I _think_ in less anti-worker areas such a dismissal would not be valid (e.g. the company can stop you entering the premises, but would have to consider you still employed, _or_ they would have to report you as being terminated rather than resigning which has legal implications for them), but even then you aren't getting any real benefit from the early notice.
Honestly the only people who gain anything from you giving advanced notice is your employer, and these are the same employers who can (and do) fire you essentially without notice.
At one startup where I played workaholic for several years establishing substantial leverage and dependency on my presence, I didn't just give heaps of notice; I plain asked the CEO how to gracefully exit the company.
Right thing to do, yeah?
Except he disastrously mishandled the situation by insisting I stay "until the end". Neglecting to take advantage of the opportunity to tell me exactly for how long and with who the knowledge transfers should occur. Instead it just turned into a sort of pissing match where leadership was acting like they owned my autonomy/called my bluff, insisted on paying me for a month+ without coming in "for me to think about it". It was just a ridiculous calamity on their part, culminating in my leaving anyways without any transfer at all. (They eventually went bankrupt after burning >$100M, go figure)
In hindsight that experience alone discouraged me from ever letting myself work hard into such a role again.
And if you're not in some high-impact, difficult-to-replace, bus-factor role, giving notice really isn't all that important IMO.
Now, I absolutely loathe the modern corporate culture, which is happy to escort you out of the building the moment your employment is terminated, without giving you a chance to even say goodbye to your colleagues, who you might have been working with extensively for years. It's deeply traumatic and it contributes to an overall sense of fear and "screw teamwork, it's everyone for themselves".
But now when I "give notice" and they don't even let me try to work the next 2 weeks, I'm grateful. I don't want my coworkers to ignore or patronize me while I sit idle or do make-work. I don't want to have to put on a show about how wonderful the company and team are, and why I'm leaving anyways. Nor do I want to expose my true feelings to my co-workers and infect them with my bad attitude--even if the writing is on the wall for the entire enterprise. It's like a breakup: the best thing for everyone is to make it clean and crisp, say "it's not you, it's me", make a sincere statement to the effect of "let's be friends", and then see each other roughly never again.
So you avoid the perception of being dishonest and hiding something by actually being dishonest and hiding something?
It's not lying. It just not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
ADDED: Companies can also obviously be in a place where at least some of your reasons are so blindingly obvious they don't need to be stated.
Every place I've left, the best I could muster with a straight face was a bland tautological platitude — something like, "Oh, you know, just going to do something different."
I don't exactly have tons of experience quitting jobs or ending relationships, but I've never understood the relentless navel-gazing of "why" that seems to come along with most people quitting their jobs. And, besides, what's the point of expounding on how things could be better (in an "exit interview" or otherwise), when everyone knows all that feedback will have no impact?
It seems to me the practical part of the conversation is simply, "I'm ending our relationship." And then — everyone moves forward from there.
Many employers do listen to exit interview feedback, and if themes are consistent, changes do get made. Have seen it happen more than once, although it usually takes multiple departures or the loss of a key person.
Of course not all employers are like this, but if you‘re willing to give yours the benefit of the doubt, it can be worth paying it forward to your colleagues by giving your feedback in a professional way.
My anecdata seems to confirm this. I told my employer I love my job but I'm leaving solely because of their RTO policies. They changed them after I left.
I find this on itself to be a dysfunction. In well functioning team, they would be able to guess, because they would know your general opinions. And their positive opinions would be known too.
As in, this happens only because the communication within the team or within the corporation is dysfunctional and people dont talk in the first place.
Another note is that I'm always succession planning. Document, share what I'm doing, etc... I learned early on that if I couldn't be replaced, I also couldn't be promoted.
benefit from it, sure.
Nailed this on the head.
At the same time, the extra work this requires is often not appreciated by management either - I've seen some (admittedly poor) managers comment on lower productivity due to the documentation efforts.
And management priorities change over time, it’s not uncommon for companies to emphasize documentation more as they mature.
Even as someone who has zero interest in being promoted, I think this is good practice. It's part of helping to maintain a healthy organization. If anyone is actually indispensable, that's a very dangerous situation for the team and the company.
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.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 agree that most reasonable HR departments wouldn’t let it go that far but some people like to play dirty irrespective of the costs.
Many states pay significantly higher than $550. WA pays a max of $999 weekly.
Unless, of course, you are trying to collect during a period that is scheduled as a vacation? That could create problems.
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.
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.
Seems like an interesting idea. Give as much notice as possible and then see if they bench you until then.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
It’s not the date you put in the letterhead. That would be insane.
Clarification: I put in the body of the letter the effective date I will be leaving. Something like:
"My final day will be December 12, 2018."
The date in the letterhead has nothing to do with it.
"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: […]
* https://duttonlaw.ca/do-you-have-to-give-two-weeks-notice-in...
During the 'notice period' you still have a job, though the employer may tell you to simply stay at home (and rescind access, etc).
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.
Factually it worked twice for them, versus your theories that it shouldn’t work.
Even executives don't get that. A run of the mill employee definitely won't.
Everyone else: please talk to a lawyer in your state familiar with employment law before banking on this.
Culture and relationships are a two way street, and you are always responsible for your own part in building it. You might have a shit boss or work for a shit company and it's not going to end well, and if that's the case and there's nothing you can do, then all that's left is to look out for yourself. I wouldn't ever advocate for that to be the default position, though.
Thinking back on it, though, I would absolutely not give further notice if I was only doing "busy" work (as someone suggested elsewhere). I try to maintain a good relationship with my employers as a professional courtesy. Putting out notice beyond what active work I have would, I think, send a signal that I'm looking to collect an easy pay check and disconnect. Lining up my resignation with my active work sends a message that I am still invested in contributing to my team's success, and that's a good way to have people be more than happy to give you referrals or networking opportunities in the future.
As with all social etiquette, it's a guideline, not a law. The outcome depends entirely on your relationship with your boss and what kind of position the team is left in when you leave.
It's different if you're a contractor (i.e. not an employee but hired for a specific contractor term) or in a union (not an issue for most software engineers). My experience with both is indirect.
In all cases, they have been appreciated, and it gave me the opportunity to wrap up projects.
In several cases(the previous three jobs), I have been retained in a 1099 capacity at rates that far exceed my salary(3-5x) for consulting on projects and ongoing expertise of archaic systems. Typically that arrangement winds down to very little work after the first year.
In all of these scenarios, my manager was aware I was looking for months before I put in my notice. My reason for moving is a combination of environment(outgrown the scale of the company, or looking to relocate) and pay.
This mirrors my experience, but for one time where my manager had been a friend for some years prior to me reporting to him.
Came back on Monday, incompetent fuckers had locked me out and terminated me as a no call no show. lol, uh, it's in the fucking time off tool you fucks. The thing that really sucked was that I was a high preforming employee, I canceled a promotion review to give notice. 7 years in and some jerkoff needs your seat and 6 weeks isn't appreciated. The got me reconnected after a couple days and then my manager never talked to me again. that was a long three weeks there at the end.
After the week is done to figure that stuff out - no one really cares about you anymore. There is likewise a tacit assumption that you won’t deliver anything again (why would you?). As such it’s usually best to let someone out the door after a week.
Typically when I give notice, I simply state that the employer can do whatever over the next 2 weeks. 70% of the time, when given the choice, they will decide on a fast transition of 1 week. There hardly is anything to do the second week.
In practice, even two weeks is more than enough for your role to be taken over by someone. I really see little value in giving more notice that that for either the employer or employee.
Ideally, sure. In real life the employee needs to do a brain dump of handover documents because no one writes anything down.
I personally think it's the right thing to do, not for the company, but for your colleagues. If staying longer can help your colleagues to take over your stuff, some will be grateful and will remember it if your paths cross again.
I know now I might have been able to fight this, and may have done that knowing what I know now. On the other hand it might not be worth the effort.
If you're wondering how, I think I didn't "earn" vacation until the end of the month, and was technically using "borrowed vacation". I stayed with that company for 7 years... I can't think of any other reason for them to end my employment two days early, right before the end of the month.
If you've been on the other side of that - having employees sabotage or steal in the process of leaving - you'd at least understand it. Not many people do that, but it's always the bad apples who ruin it for everybody.
From now on I'm giving 2 weeks and getting the fuck out of there.
It's OK to give a few hints you will not renew a contract as long as you are clear that you still like them and plan to be friends.
So don’t negotiate start date until you have an offer and are talking to the hiring manager. Save it to the end and you can say “well, I’m still not 100% sure about this offer, but I think this would work if you could push my start date out a bit…”
If it’s an amicable departure 3-4 weeks can be a lot less stressful for everyone.
6-8 weeks is kinda weird though, unless you‘re extremely senior and on critical path for a lot of things, or you‘re using up accrued PTO.
If you're a leader in a team, definitely give more notice. It's the professional thing to do. Something that the post -doesn't- say is that you should have a transition plan written down before you tell your boss, just in case you get cut off.
Of course they can still summarily kick you out the door, but it's a chance for you as a leader to do right by the team.
My thought is that if that worked for me for 2 weeks, it should also be more than enough for an IC.
On the other hand, the leadership folks I interact with always make only super high level decisions. Rarely does it get intricate. It's more important to know how to quickly assess the big picture and how to communicate. All lot of what a leader does and makes them uniquely leaders is not something that's based on acquiring company specific and product and infra specific knowledge accumulated across several years.
I rarely care if my manager leaves beyond the fact that I have to build trust with someone new. But ultimately they aren't super in the weeds on anything mission critical.
An engineer that can jump into an incident and immediately identify the problem on a code path because they have worked on it or around it intimately at some point does make a difference, but also just having a detailed mental model of how the system pieces interact is super crucial. Bus factor is a thing, even though it rarely is catastrophic. Lead time can help here.
Of course leaders leaving also is a challenge, but it's because of their unique charm, ability to grasp issues quickly and make sane decisions. But none of this can be transferred to a new guy, in 2 or 4 weeks or 8.
Never again. Everything was much more dragged out. Lots of idle time. Lots more "so I hear you're leaving" conversations. Next time, I might do one week notice since this seems to have become a lot more common.
Now obviously, in a mom and pop shop, I would discuss my desire to leave before I even started looking and help find/train my replacement, while they would likewise help me find a new job that better fits my life situation. But that's just not how corporate America works.
I signaled I was on the way out for quite a while ahead of putting in two weeks, and it was abundantly clear they'd take me back quite readily.
But that situation doesn't generalize.
Absolutely. I've been at places where I was escorted out five minutes after I gave my notice, and at places where 10 years later they still call me every 8 months or so.
They also took my $20k bonus that I was supposed to receive months earlier and used it as a carrot on a stick to get me to sign a bunch of legal paperwork releasing all my rights. At least I got the much needed money. I was really underpaid there.
I also lost my best friend who also worked there that decided to side with my boss and the company. lol It was a bad time.
Not even just in this context, but in the context of everything. Corporate America is absolutely about deception and politics now, it isn't about working at all.
Good luck seriously in finding new and more quality friends! You'll find some!
1. Your employer is NEVER your friend. You might be friendly with them but they will replace you in a second so it's best to have the right mindset from the start.
2. Every important correspondence needs to be in writing. If you asked your boss in person whether you could take vacation days, follow up and have them confirm it in an email.
The friend violated rule 1 and in the end it won't have mattered once they get laid off.
This is because there are multiple ways you are integrated into the company and the correct wind-down period for each is different. A few months to find and train a replacement, a few weeks to document all your organizational knowledge, a few days to say goodbye to your colleagues - and for companies with valuable secrets it’s obviously desirable that your access to their information is revoked instantaneously.
Ultimately, for a senior software engineer, quitting is just complicated. I think if you want to try a variable-length notice of resignation you need to find someone in the chain of command you trust to be level-headed and pragmatic, approach them with your thoughts of leaving, and (matching their level-headedness and pragmatism) discuss how to make your departure as successful and effective for the company as possible - maybe you start documenting knowledge now, wind down day-to-day fire-fighting responsibilities a week from now, and formally announce your two weeks notice a week after that.
But you have to go into that discussion prepared to roll with the decisions they make, all the way from “immediate dismissal and escort from the building” to “they do not want you to quit and try to offer you more money or different responsibilities”. If that gives you trepidation, maybe it’s better to stick to the business standard of two weeks notice. It’s not optimal, but it is well-trodden ground.
Based on the article and some comments here, I realize it could be quite valuable to resign early in the month--like, in the first week. For my jobs (in the US), if they take the resignation and walk me out the door immediately, my health insurance would still be in force until the end of the month.
My direct experience is that its important to have a week of vacation in-between jobs, just to clear my mind and prepare for the new work. I had an employer who found it urgent that I start ASAP. I tried to negotiate away from their insistence, but eventually gave in to their request. It was the worst starting week ever in terms of my focus and comfort with the new job. Might have been better if I'd taken it as the bad sign that it was and declined their offer.
In Switzerland where I live, it is 3 full calendar months. And I thought Switzerland is very similar to the USA...
My god 2 weeks lol, someone quits and he is gone the next day. How is this legal?
What?
I suggest you come and visit.
In Romania you give 2 weeks notice as an IC and 4 weeks as a manager. It can be shorter if the company agrees, but it cannot be longer by law: you can tell them in advance if you want, they cannot force you to stay if you don't.
Why ?
Is this like some "Oh no you're not deciding to quit, I decided first you're fired, I call dibs !" ?
The dude said they will leave anyway. And doing the layoff will just allow him to leave without extensively teaching someone else.
This should be illegal as well.
I had one person who gave a full year's notice, so that we could hire, train, and integrate the new worker before she left. It was glorious and resulted in zero down time.
I have had another who gave one month's notice, and spent the entire time being toxic. Digging out from under that took the better part of three years. The overlap for technical knowledge was just simply not worth the headaches in the team.
It's highly subjective, but it really does depend on the person, in absence of a clear "they're out immediately policy". But as a manager, my preference is to select a date roughly one week out from the notice and use that as the exit day. That way the worker can close any relationships they have, positively, but if they go sour there isn't really enough time to screw up the rest of the team.
In the context of your statement, we only hear one side of the argument. Remember that there is always a second perspective. I know that I have had folks who I have told to just go the same day they gave notice who tell their friends that I'm an uncaring asshat. The reality is that I fully expected them to be toxic in their remaining time.
I don't understand how anyone could do this with exception of retirement. Who will hire you with one year long advance?
They probably hired them ahead of time and had both working for a time. It can also take a long time to find someone.
We hired the replacement and they worked side by side for ~ 10 months. It was amazing.
Could also be an in demand skillset. If you get interest every week, you're probably not worried about being able to find work in 10 months or whatever.
Which carries some risk. If you've had a dream to sail around the world, hike the Appalachian Trail, etc. and you have some decent money in the bank, it may be the right call. But you can also return to a more challenging employment environment.
I was just suggesting plausible scenarios where someone might have decided the risk/reward was right for them.
I worked for a systems integrator that developed a turnkey software system for a client. It was a massive project (a systems migration) and ran for 3 years until handover. I was the lead on the project.
A couple of years later, I left my employer and joined a startup. 10-11 months later, the startup was looking to cut its burn rate and the CEO asked me to look for a job outside as revenues were not coming in as planned. He did promise me one thing. I could come back and join them after they became cash positive. He expected this to happen in 12-18 months. I trusted the CEO.
By pure coincidence, the client I worked several years ago was completely exiting operations from one of their operating locations (employees were offered to move to another city or leave with severance pay). The entire team that we had handed over the new turnkey system was being let go and none of the opted to move to a different city.
I applied for the job and got it. I told the management (they were from the other city) that I will de-risk the transition for them completely since I knew the system like the back of my hand and laid out one condition. I will stay for 2 years and will need a replacement to join in the 2nd year (there were some intricacies in the system that had daily, weekly, monthly and yearly processes) and I wanted my replacement to be trained on all steps. So, a year of overlap was justified. The hiring manager and the division VP, both interviewed me and agreed to this.
I did my job true to my conscience. As planned, I let them know at the end of the first year that a replacement needs to be brought in. A lateral hire came in as my replacement and I trained him and completed the knowledge transfer.
I quit after the second year as originally planned. My startup CEO rehired me back into their company which was now revenue-generating and cash positive. I joined in a senior leadership position.
That was one of the most intricate knowledge transfer of my career and I have been very happy. It wouldn't have been possible without the various parties trusting each other.
In many jurisdictions you can start collecting unemployment a lot faster if you're laid off rather than quitting.
In general, because workers can pretty much leave whenever they want, employers need to make sure there's good financial incentives and good working conditions. Some employers will provide things like retention bonuses, stock plans tied to staying employed for a certain length, or other incentives that employees give up when they quit.
As far as a mandatory 3 month notice period: As an American, the few times I've been in a "bad" job, I've just wanted to leave. A 3 month period would just make me miserable. I'd rather have some kind of financial incentive to stay to a certain date.
Edit: although I’m not sure how it would play out if I decided to just do nothing for those 3 months if I were to leave
For example the difficulty in firing someone in France was a plot device in "Emily in Paris". In most states in the US you can be fired with immediate effect from a non-government job at any time, for any reason, or no reason at all.
You're not even required to give two weeks, though that's widely considered to be a courteous thing to do. If it's employment at will (as most jobs are in the United States), you can put down your tools and walk out the door with no notice of any kind. The other side of that coin is that the employer can fire you/lay you off, also with no notice.
Not if you've signed a contract which says otherwise, which of course would make it not "at-will" employment.
"At-will" applies to both the employer and the employee. Either can terminate it without notice.
"At-will means that an employer can terminate an employee at any time for any reason, except an illegal one, or for no reason without incurring legal liability. Likewise, an employee is free to leave a job at any time for any or no reason with no adverse legal consequences."
https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/at-will-employment...
How is it legal for this not to be the case? We have constitutional laws against enslavement or indentured servitude here. Nobody can force you to work if you don’t want to. You can quit right now if you want to.
What happens if you stop showing up to work in Switzerland? Do you go to prison?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/us/thedacare-lawsuit-wisc...
- you stop getting paid. - you probably will have a hard time dealing with your former employers if you need something from them. - they think you're a dick, and tell other people, if asked, what an asshole you are. - potentially if they have nothing better to do, they get a lawyer to write you a threatening letter, then do nothing.
Nobody cares enough to go tell other people. Just try to picture the super awkward conversation between executives about and IC who resigned and then did noting during the notice period. In fact, they'd probably do the same.
It's like if you're a freelance and you accept a project. They can't force you to work on the project until completed, but they can certainly levy financial penalties against you if you don't.
There are very few circumstances in the US in which an employer can do that. It is considered wage theft, which in many states is a criminal offense that pierces the corporate veil. If you worked hours you get paid for those hours and the company can't avoid paying you (with fees or whatnot).
If you are forced to work because if you don't then you will be fined for breach of contract, then that is indentured servitude with extra steps. That is illegal everywhere in the US after the 13th amendment. That's why in the US employment contracts are generally enforced with rewards (aka golden handcuffs) rather than punishments.
I was most likely confusing with "financial penalties", mostly it means not paying you after you stop working, and in some specific circumstances you can sue for damages. They can't fine you.
Also it's symmetrical. Switzerland is "at will" (in the sense that they can lay you off at any time for any reason), but they have to follow the same notice period. In essence this is mandatory minimum severance.
So that's something I'm never doing again.
- accounts locked moments before the layoff announcement.
- kept on payroll until the next month, so we'd get another month of benefits
- given about 6.5 weeks of severance
- allowed to keep my computer
It was really nice of them.
My only sadness is that there was no chance to say goodbyes, which sucked because we had a wonderful team. I finally realized this downside of team building.
Proper notice (in US at least) without severe mitigating circumstances is two weeks and that's what you get. If the employer wants to it to be less then so be it. FWIW I've changed job 5-6 times over my professional career and every single time it's been a cordial exit where I've worked out my final two weeks.
As the employee submitting your notice - have your ducks-in-a-row before turning in your notice as it maximizes your chance for a smooth exit.
Right. If you have vesting events, expected bonus payouts, etc. wait until after those happen before giving notice as opposed to just assuming the employer will keep you on the payroll as an employee for those two weeks.
Give your contractual notice, whether thats 2 weeks in the US, or a month or 3 months in the UK or whatever and be prepared to actually leave at the end of it.
Any other advice is actually harmful to the majority of people.
72 hours notice in some states if you want to be paid out for everything they owe you on the spot.
But otherwise I give them about as much notice as they would give me: at 4:59PM on Friday I send an email to HR informing them that today was my last day.
Severance is never paid unless you sign away your rights.
There is no contractual requirement for severance.
We are at will slaves.
{In which case the part about 'get benefits longer' goes out the window.}