Why is giving two weeks notice a professionalism issue (and not a contract issue)?

Question

I read this question "Do I owe them a two week notice?" and the most popular answers with astonishment. It seems a lot of people consider it professionally necessary to give two weeks notice no matter how the employee was treated even in an at-will state.

What I (a European who has never worked in the US or any place with at-will employment laws) wonder is: If the employer expected to get two weeks notice, wouldn't they just put a clause into the contract requiring either party to give two weeks notice? So if this clause is missing in the contract I would think that the employer neither expectes nor requires two weeks notice and that abitcurious (in case of the question mentioned above) would be entirely justified in just handing in the resignation and leaving right away.

If it's professionally necessary to always give two weeks notice, why would any employer not put this clause into every work contract they send out?

But from the answers to that question it's obivous to me that I'm missing something - probably something about US work culture and/or law. What am I missing here? (Apologies if this is purely a law question - I had the impression that it's not.)

Update: It seems I've hit upon one of those culture issues where people from both sides of the Atlantic are incredulous that anybody would do things differently from them because "how's that supposed to work?" - and yet it does seem to work (on both sides of the Atlantic). Thanks a lot to everyone posting here for indulging my curiosity and taking the time to explain this.

Answer 1

Most at-will employment in the US doesn't involve an employment contract. There are documents that get signed, of course, for non-disclosure agreements, tax withholding, benefit enrollment, etc. But you generally wouldn't have an employment contract as such. The closest you'll come for most people is an acknowledgement that you've read the employee handbook that lays out the company policies but is subject to change at any time.

Two-weeks notice is solely a cultural expectation. You're entirely free to announce at noon that you're going to lunch and then call at 1 and inform them that you won't be back. If you do that, however, your former coworkers will be less likely to have wonderful things to say about you if you need a reference or encounter them later. It's generally considered professional to at least offer your employer a couple weeks in which to transfer tasks to others and make sure that tasks aren't dropped.

Could an employer draft a document requiring two weeks notice? Sure. But it probably wouldn't do much good. If there were penalties to not giving notice, the agreement would almost certainly need to impose some sort of reciprocal burden on the employer. From the employer standpoint, since 99% of your good employees are going to give notice anyway, the agreement wouldn't accomplish much other than to impose some sort of obligation on the employer. And despite the image we have, Americans aren't anxious to involve lawyers which would be necessary if a company wanted to enforce some sort of penalty for not giving notice. So you could have an agreement. It just wouldn't have any practical benefit to the employer.

Answer 2

If it's professionally necessary to always give two weeks notice, why would any employer not put this clause into every work contract they send out?

This is actually a somewhat complicated question. I'll do what I can to cover at-will employment states.

First off, the USA has an adverse reaction to anything that has the appearance of slavery; forced employment certainly falls under this view. A second thing that impacts this is how contract law works in the USA.

All contracts, in order to be valid, require "consideration" for both sides otherwise they are unenforceable. Some state supreme courts have ruled that continued employment or the normal employee salary can not be used as consideration; others have taken the opposite opinion.

This means that an employer which has a new hire sign a "you will always give 2 weeks notice" document may have to provide some other form of consideration to the employee for that above and beyond the normal salary. For non-critical employees, you'll never see this happen as the benefit to the company simply isn't there. For crucial ones a company will sometimes offer a monetary bonus to the employee to encourage them to stay those 2 weeks or longer.

Certainly owners of companies that are being acquired usually sign an agreement to provide continued service to the new owners for a certain period of time at a certain rate in order to facilitate the hand over. However this is quite a bit different than a normal employment contract.

Even if an employee signs that document and simply walks out one day leaving the contract unfulfilled then the only recourse the company will have is to not pay that extra bonus. For those states where continued employment is consideration - well, the employee again can still walk away and only to give up those last few weeks of pay - which they were giving up anyway.

Point is, the company can't take this any further. No court in the USA is going to force someone to actually show up to work because to do otherwise would give an appearance of slavery. Further no company would want to be involved in the tremendous amount of very bad press that would occur when having workers sign such a clause.

At the end of the day, the notice period is just professional courtesy. Yes, it's generally one sided in the employer's favor but it's not required and, in my opinion, not that big a deal to ignore it.

Answer 3

I don't know which countries in Europe you've lived or worked in, but I can make comparisons to experiences my family have had in Germany. Hopefully, you'll get a better understanding of the professional environment in the US.

In the US, companies don't typically invest as much in their employees. For example, companies don't like to give extensive training to new hires. They would much rather hire someone that has received training/experience from another company (which is why recent college grads have difficulty finding jobs). In Germany this is the opposite. Companies there would rather hire someone inexperienced right out of school, provide them training, and keep them forever.

By investing little in their employees, it becomes much cheaper to fire someone. In combination with at-will contracts, companies can afford mass lay-offs whenever they are losing/not making enough profit. Adding terminology regarding time constraints would be detrimental to the company in this sort of environment.

That being said, changing jobs is fairly common in the US. People frequently move across states, and even the country, to find new lucrative employment (moving twice the distance from about the UK to Italy for a job seems insane for my German family). With all this going on, references become pretty important. Giving your current employer some time to make arrangements before you leave is the respectful thing to do. Your employer will recognize this, especially since they couldn't afford to do the same for you (vindictive employees). This is more likely to lead to a positive reference which could land you that next job.

As a side note, the companies I've worked for don't necessarily like promoting people. If someone leaves, they typically like to fill the position with someone new. For a lot of people, the best way to get promoted is to find your promotion with another company. If you want that new position, you almost need a reference from your current one.

Answer 4

Your assumption that most employees in the US have a contract is wrong. We may have a one page offer setting the initial start date and salary, and mentioning benefits and employee handbook; but no formal contract.

Therefore any expectation for two weeks notice is by custom.

The role of the two week notice is to train somebody else, or to prepare turnover documents, or to finish the assigned shift schedule. It isn't to let them find and hire a replacement and have you train them.

It isn't months long which would seem to be designed to make is too hard to leave.

Answer 5

Most US employees do not have contracts. The ones that do, abide by the contract. Giving notice is expected, but not required. If you leave your employer without notice, it is considered bad form, and could damage your reputation with future employers.

Also, employers will ask "how much notice do you need to give" to see if you're honorable or not. If you say anything other than two weeks (or longer if you have contractual commitments) you may have just killed your chances as the employer may think that you'd leave them in a lurch at some future point.

Answer 6

Depending on your job, you might have several projects running in which you are involved or have things in your mailbox / desk that need to be transferred to others or completed by yourself.

Thus, if you were to leave immediately, this would put the company (your manager) in the difficult position of having to check everything you did for open ends. Inevitably this will lead to problems and or things that are not resolved properly.

As a result, it is considered polite to use a period after your resignation (after the company knows they have to create capacity for your open projects) to facilitate the transfer and make sure everything keeps running smoothly.

EDIT: read the question wrong, this doesn't answer the original question. Apologies.

Answer 7

I would suggest one likely reason is that if they did that, then there would have to be a reciprocal agreement not to let them go without notice. Only a company that is foolish wants to keep on board people they are letting go whether being fired for cause or in a layoff. Too many of those people have the ability to significantly damage the company.