10.06.05

Two Weeks Notice

Posted in business at 7:50 am by mridley

Perhaps I’m just a little bitter about being recently shit-canned, but I’ve been thinking about the whole two weeks notice thing. The conventional wisdom is that it’s professional courtesy for an employee to give two weeks notice before leaving a job. I think it might be time to revisit that.

The idea is that if you’re going to leave your job to take another position, you should give your current employer the courtesy of two weeks to start looking for a replacement, for you to do a knowledge transfer to coworkers, finish up critical projects, etc. That’s all well and good, but the problem is that it’s a one-sided deal.

While I haven’t been let go that many times, I have had several experiences with being laid off and in all cases my employer never gave me two weeks notice. I’ve just showed up for work that morning, started working, been called into my boss’s office, and then been shown the door. I understand that businesses don’t like to keep employees around when they know they’re about to be let go because there are concerns that they won’t have the company’s best interests in mind, will not be productive, and may even take advantage of that time to take proprietary information or sabotage the company.

I suppose that some employees might do that, but it’s still a raw deal for the employee. I suppose that would be mitigated by giving two weeks (or preferably more!) severance, but again I’ve never receved even two weeks pay when I’ve been let go. Perhaps I just have a history of working for crappy companies, I don’t know.

I do think this whole two weeks notice policy needs revisiting. Employment may not involve a legal contract, but it is a social contract between an employee and their employer. Legal contracts are not enforcable if there isn’t something in the contract for both parties. Social contracts should work the same way.

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