Fear

The main issue here is in my judgement not naivety but fear (fear being the motivator for having doubts and asking the question here instead of just doing it).

The questioner and the persons with the currently three highest scores are all from USA, and I think that heavily influences the content. I want to contribute with an outside view on this.

I think that just having two weeks is a very bad idea and let me explain why. Only two weeks notice like common in USA makes employees fear that they will loose their jobs. Two weeks is a way too short period for finding a new job. Those two weeks will probably be stressful in terminating the employment. And with poor unemployment benefits and health care, loosing the job is a big deal for people, so they understandably have fear for this.

And management will fear that people leave, because if they just sign a contract to sell something that should be delivered next month and then find out that one or more of the persons they planned on performing the work will be leaving in two weeks, then management faces a serious problem. In some way, planning is based on hope rather than certainty. Finding a replacement for someone in just two weeks is not easy either.

Fear is a crappy motivator. Or more precisely, fear is (only) beneficial for short term issues while seldom for long term issues. If you actually meet a bear in the woods, fear is good for you - run! But if the fear of possibly meeting a bear in the woods is keeping you from ever going there, your fear is not serving you well.

Fear is virtually never beneficial in any business setting. As very well put by Mirage V2.0 AWOL

Fear generally only achieves involuntary compliance, which ceases once the threat disappears.

My suggestion

If you have doubts about the consequences for yourself by telling right now, what you could do is write an anonymous letter to the management, something along the following lines.

Dear Management.

I am presenting to you an issue that I believe we can resolve in a way that is win-win for both parties.

I am one your employees. Sorry for writing anonymously, but I am (hopefully wrongly) worried that there might be some negative consequences for me to be open with this right now.

For reasons unrelated to this company, I have decided to move and therefore I will in a couple months time resign. I really want to be open about this now so that you will both get sufficient time to find someone to replace me as well as opportunity to plan the handover properly. And I will feel good about being able to help transferring knowledge to my successor.

I have not resigned from this company before, so I am unsure of what to expect. I would like it to be a good experience, but one hears various horror stories from other companies about how termination notices might get handled.

While giving notice further ahead than two weeks perhaps is not so common here in USA, several months of mutual lay off/notice time is common in other counties. This build trust and gives both the company and employer much less to fear about losing work/employees since the time will make related challenges less critical.

Long lay off periods is not a magical wonder tool that fixes all problems, it will for instance make companies more reluctant to employing new people, but it will most certainly has a positive effect on trust.

If management does not trust employees and employees do not trust management, both have a serious problem.

I kindly ask you to ask yourself "Do we want to punish or reward employees for telling early that they plan to resign?" and then take steps to make it clear for all your employees that you want them to be open about plans for resigning, and that there will be no negative consequences for telling this early.

Best regards, one of your employees.

This way, you will give management a very good reason for discussing the scenario. And this way they will have to discuss it just principally as there is no-one specific to put blame on (unless they behave really immature and try to put blame on this anonymous employee, but that will still not hit you).

If they act on it, you will notice. If they ignore it, well then you did what you could (and maybe they just need time to realize the benefits of long term thinking and mutual trust, and you planted a seed that someone else will benefit from).

My experience

At my previous employer (where I worked for 13 years) we had a downsizing of around 50% a couple of years ago when I was one of the persons being laid off. Management had a very open process about the whole thing and we had all employee meetings early on already before things were decided about who that would leave. I do not remember exactly when I was personally informed that I was to be laid off, but I continued working there for three to four months after that until my last day.

And I have actually experienced "quit in two weeks" there as well. When my current employer asked me if I had anything against going back to my previous employer and work there as a contractor for some months, I said that that I had not (I have a very good relation to my previous employer. There is nothing about the lay off process that I am dissatisfied about). Toward the end of my stay there, some changes triggered my previous employer to ask my current employer to terminate the contract earlier and thus I suddenly had to finish everything I was working with and try to transfer all the relevant knowledge in just two weeks. I did my best, but this is really not sufficient time.

Three months of mutual lay off/resign time is the standard contract in my country and I would never consider working for anything less.