Why would a resigning employee be immediately escorted out?

Question

When an employee is fired, there are reasonable reasons to immediately escort them out of the office without working a notice period. Most firings happen somewhat unexpectedly, which means you likely have made the ex-employee angry and allowing them to continue to work allows them to take revenge.

However, if an employee chooses to quit it seems this doesn't apply. If that employee wanted to be vengeful they had the entire time immediately prior to quitting to do so.

Yet, it seems pretty common even when an employee resigns to get the same treatment. I understand that negativity is not beneficial to a team, but it seems like the benefits of an actual knowledge transfer should outweigh this.

Why would a company do this to someone who voluntarily resigns, rather than work with the employee to transfer knowledge?

Assume the employment contract says nothing about a mandated period and something like two weeks, so short enough a replacement could not be found.

Answer 1

Someone who knows they are getting out is a liability. Depending on their function, they could:

• Reduce Staff morale (for instance by talking about his new awesome job is or why he quit)
• Poach Customers (access to mailing lists and company mail contacts, possibility to send mail from company accounts)
• Sabotage the Business (if the employee is in IT)
• Not be very effective (Many people half-ass everything when they know they'll be gone in 2 weeks)

Yes, they could have done all of this before they give notice, but the employer didn't know about their desire to leave by then. Employers like to cut liabilities when they arise, and that its been a liability before usually doesn't preclude them from considering it one still.

It also may be possible that the resignation is a deal the employee struck with management, in order to avoid being terminated for cause. In these cases, all the usual reasons apply.

Because of these reasons, unless you trust the employee not to do that, and unless you really need them to train their replacement, its usually better to let them go home immediately (the nicer companies still pay the 2 weeks leave. When I resigned from my first Job, I did so with 2 months notice, as per contract. They didn't have me come in again, but paid out the 2 months still)

Answer 2

It makes other employees scared to resign and shows that company doesn't trust their morality.

It is also a bad idea, culturally.

Coming from Europe I'd say that you can do this differently, we do this differently, and all the terrible risks and obvious reasons enumerated in existing answers don't apply. This is because they only exist in your brains and not your world. They are errors in your judgement.

A company in financial sector.

Some employees of IT dept resigned trough the history, who could technically: steal credit card numbers, introduce back doors, install subtle bombs that would fire in future.

And who could with just a little bit of thinking devise how to do it anonymously (I said it already: IT).

They worked 3 full months after resignation.

They didn't particularly like to work these 3 months and stated it plainly, but they were legally obliged to do so.

They didn't even like the company.

The company could have legally walked them out on day 0, but the decision was to keep them.

The bad stuff never happened.

And they fixed some stuff during the time, cleaned some of 'their' mess, did some knowledge transfer.

It was more than one occasion.

Go figure. Employees actually have some morality. They don't go around harming others just because they see no immediate penalty.

I think that after 3 months if they found on a sidewalk a wallet of their CEO, they would return it.

Their managers trust in that morality. And the upper manager knows that they can trust the lower manager's judgement. The owners know they can trust the upper management. A magical chain of trust.

It's bad

I believe that other answers, maybe because of the immersion, didn't see what is obvious to me. If you (a person) hire yourself a janitor, and interact with him for years, and as he says he would like to resign the next minute you send guards to escort him? Really...? Because your stuff is so precious? Unacceptable risk, huge liability? A minute before it was acceptable, now it's not? Nevermind how long is the list of your stated reasons and justifications, the action brings a clear message about the employer. It shows how employer treats others, how much trust they have with morality, what you could expect of employer's own morality.

(Update)

Cause

If you see a company that experiences this, and want to find the cause you ask a simple question: "what needs to change before this company can keep employees after resignation?" If you address all the stated reasons one by one, and somehow magically exclude them all (the risk that an employee would reduce staff morale, poach customers, sabotage, etc) I won't expect the situation to change. I expect they would still have been escorted out and I expect the enumeration of reasons would get new entries. So these are not actual cause: they don't influence reality.

If you re-create the trust in human morality, I expect things to change. This is because you nailed the true cause, not just a stated reason.

Now, how it is repaired, is there a recipe to change a mistrusting company, I honestly don't know.

Answer 3

Reason that you may be escorted from the building instead of being allowed to work for your notice period - "The Boss just wants you gone due to anger or arrogance"

I had it happen to me once because putting in my notice made my boss angry. I put in my two week notice, got screamed at by the boss for "F'ing him and messing up his plans" and told to get out. Might not be common but it does happen.

Answer 4

I have heard of this in situations involving security clearance or leaving to work for companies considered competitors. In these cases, it seems like a defensive measure similar to when firing an employee. The employer has less trust that the employee will not breach agreements, cause harm, etc, even if this is inadvertent, so chooses to limit liability.

Answer 5

Some companies have internal policies for this, mostly due to Security (Physical, Information, Network, etc) reasons.

In the military/government contracting world, especially when read-on to sensitive/special programs or dealing with anything classified/confidential you are immediately removed as per protocol. That person is not allowed to handle that information/equipment anymore, and you do not want to risk spillage or aggregation.

In the IT world it may be because the person had access to sensitive data like password lists, admin rights, access to DBs, servers, etc. As an extension of that other industries with PII/PHI like insurance, healthcare, financial/banking need to safeguard that information and a person resigning no longer has a "need-to-know"

Other elements to consider are not wanting a person to become disruptive, take a baseball bat to a glass-paned office, prance around naked, or some other jubilant self-indulging "I got fired/I got a better job" behavior (I have witnessed all of that, the PMC world is super strange)

Typically being escorted out isn't something against the person, it is just protocol. Every time I have resigned a job to go work somewhere else I was always escorted of the premises, had my belongings searched for sensitive information/equipment (paperwork, thumb drives, CDs, etc) and had to turn in my security badge and sign applicable NDAs.

There are situations where personal emotions may fuel the need to have someone being escorted - either the person resigning or the person in charge of them but that is highly variable.

Answer 6

Some more possible reasons:

1. Because when a person resigns, suddenly their manager and possibly coworkers have to make plans to handle the person's workload, hire a replacement, etc. Having the departing employee around is just distracting and not necessarily helpful.

2. Because the departing employee may want to start socializing, making the rounds, saying goodbye... again distracting people and wasting company time. Organize a goodbye meet at a bar instead?

3. Because security/liability -- can you imagine the uproar, "Oh, sorry everyone, that password leak was done accidentally by an employee who just resigned the day before." Substitute "flooded basement", "failed firmware upgrade to 1M phones", "wing falling off a plane", etc.

4. Because sometimes "resignations" aren't all that voluntary.

Answer 7

The manager who has just heard your resignation also only human. They may well be placed in a tricky situation by your quitting. Having a simple procedure in place saves them having to make a judgement call at a stressful time for both of you, or trying to get a quick decision out of HR.

Like many policies, this is designed for the worst case -- a tiny minority of employees may pose some sort of risk, whether to morale or to systems, but the potential damage may be huge. Of course in other places, a rule like "those with access to...must leave immediately" may be applied.

It's perfectly possible to handle this like grownups, for it to be the manager who walks the employee to the door and shakes hands/offers best wishes. It may even be suitable to imply that the individual is going to take the rest of the day/week off and come back, to buy some time for a decision to be made.

Answer 8

Beyond the reasons already given it depends on where the employee is going for their new role.

If it is or could be that the employee is going to a competitor they'll be put on immediate "gardening leave". This takes them away from the office and any sensitive information that they might see or overhear that could be used by their new employer.

The gardening leave (sitting at home for your notice period) also gives some time for the employee to forget certain time-sensitive information, or for that information to become redundant.

I've had a couple of colleagues say they were going to a competitor, and they were escorted immediately from the building without time to collect their things. I also know one worker in another company who when they handed in their notice said they weren't going to say who they were going to who was similarly escorted from the building on the off-chance they were going to a competitor.

It's also very common for you to be ineligible to start your new job while on gardening leave - even though you aren't working, you may still be called in and you are still employed by company X while working your notice. It gives a little extra protection because if you start at company Y while on gardening leave you could be sued for breach of contract.

Answer 9

The core reason is simple.

Security aside. Get the person out of there asap before they affect morale or anything disruptive happens. All of this is emotionally charged, best to get it over with and people can deal with other stuff professionally later. This is much preferable from many viewpoints, although perhaps not the persons immediate colleagues, but in many cases them as well.

Answer 10

No matter how friendly the workplaces are for today's homo sapiens, at the end it's still a jungle you hunt for food. So yes, as soon as your agreement ends, you will be escorted by your boss or even by a guard from your desk to out. That's on the papers you've signed, remember? You may talk with people to lower their morale, or make an ugly scene. You may plan to send an email at the last minute about the true reason of you leaving. I saw it happened before. And there are people obligated to ensure that this will never happen. I am not trying to draw a dark portrait though. It's what it supposed to be. And it's still much better condition than a jungle.

Answer 11

This particular act is a result of a mistrusting society. However, with this practice now becoming commonplace, the idea of giving a 2 weeks notice is also no longer expected. To do so would have you unemployed 2 weeks early!

You now have to just go along as planned and do not tell your employer until the last day. If you are asked why you didn't give them 2 weeks notice, tell them the trend is to be "walked out" when that is given, and you wanted to avoid that unpleasantry. You had a good employment and want to remember it that way ... and not to have that memory sullied by being "walked out" like a hardened criminal. They will understand.