If you give 2 weeks notice to your employer, are they legally barred from firing you in that time? Or from simply cutting you a check for the time and telling you to get lost?
This is the result of an argument with several co-workers who claim the above is true. I disagreed. What’s the skinny?
This is probably going to vary a little from place to place, but I would think it most unlikely that an employer would be obliged to let you serve out your notice and indeed I seem to recall that the option to pay in lieu of notice is pretty much a standard feature in contracts 'round these parts.
Also, how could they be banned from dismissing you? - thought experiment:
You hand in your notice
The next day, you walk into the boardroom during a meeting, climb up on the table, strip naked and sing Life Has Been Good To Me.
Should they be restrained from firing you?
In right to work states, your employer can fire you for any reason (barring discrimination.) They could certainly fire you if you give two weeks notice of your resignation, though it’s common courtesy not to. It’s also not wise, as they’re SOL if they can’t find and train a replacement in time.
Indeed, they should be required to give you a raise.
That would depend on the tips, I suppose.
I should have excluded firing for cause in my OP. My co=workers were concerning their argument on the difference between being fired and quitting on someone’s work history.
The hypo they used was the inevitable “You’re quitting? Hell, you say. YOU’RE FIRED!”
Usually, a company would like very much not to fire you because of the way it may affect the unemployment insurance they pay. For my company, if we want to fire someone without it affecting the unemployment payments we make to the state, we have to follow a lengthy procedure documenting that we fired with cause and gave the employee ample opportunity to change their behavior and remain employed. Unless we’d started this process already, there’s no way we could push it through in time to fire someone to avoid paying them during their two weeks notice period. If a company wants you gone, letting you quit is much better for them than firing you.
In many cases I have seen a company simply cut a check for two weeks pay and show the person to the door. This is often done for security reasons when having a short-timer on staff is not worth the buy-out. In other cases it might be done if the employment contract says the employee gets paid for leave that was never taken. In either case, this doesn’t count as being fired since they’re essentially giving you paid leave for your last two weeks. Of course a company could just fire you to avoid paying you the two week’s pay, but that may have consequences for their insurance rates which are much more costly.
In addition to insurance, it’s just not good management. If other employees see that the employer won’t be honorable about the two weeks, they’ll just up and quit whenever they feel like, since they know they’ll be fired if they submit notice.
It’s not in the company’s best interest to fire an employee once notice is given. The company would then owe severance pay, if applicable.
At my place of business, where many employees represent the company to the public, management frequently lets the employee go at the time it receives the 2 weeks notice. The employee gets their accrued benefits that they normally get when quitting, AND gets the two weeks pay (the 2 weeks pay they would have received had they stayed during the notice period).
Management’s position is that they don’t want a potentially disgruntled employee representing the company to the public.
There are usually no hard feelings on either side.