Got a message from a friend this evening. She had been working as a leasing agent at an apartment complex. She found a similar job for another employer at a location much nearer her home. She duly gave two week’s notice and pledged to work out the period, which ends on the 27th of February. Today she was informed by her manager that she did not have to work the remainder of her notice period. Later in the day, as she was preparing to leave, she was told she would not be paid for the remainder of the notice period.
I don’t know at the moment whether there was an employment contract or not, or whether such a contract specified a two-week notice period. I suspect she’s screwed in this case, but I thought I’d ask anyway: could my friend enforce payment for the remainder of the notice period?
AFAIK two weeks notice is just a polite custom, and there’s no law saying that you have to give two weeks notice, or that they have to keep you on for two weeks. They can let you go immediately if they wish. I’m pretty sure this is true for all states. I’ll try to find a cite.
Sorry. It’s Texas. Meantime, I’ve been searching around a bit, and since it’s an “at-will” state, it appears that unless she had a employment contract stating required notice, she’s out the week’s pay.
She was not not screwed out of anything as she was ever owed anything re two weeks of guaranteed employment upon notice. Two weeks notice is a polite custom not a rule.
Well, you sort of have to know her. Nice girl, but ‘entitlement’ is pretty much her middle name. Probably should have written the title differently.
Closest thing to an issue here would be the idea that she says “I’ll keep working for two weeks”, employer says “OK”, then a week later says “OK, you can leave, and this is your last day’s pay”. I concur that absent any other agreement, she doesn’t get an extra week’s pay just for the hell of it.
Quite often, when an employee give their two week notice, security is called and they are escorted from the property. I personally think it’s silly, because most people don’t give a two weeks notice on the spur of the moment, and would have plans to do something evil before hand. Regardless, at a lot of companies, they’re not allowed to work, but policies vary concerning the pay status of those two weeks.
The idea is that the employee trades the promise of a guaranteed employee for two weeks to two weeks of pay. The employer promises two weeks of pay in return for not having employees quit and leave them without staff unexpectedly. How much of the transition period is actually needed or used isn’t the issue. The situation isn’t one of being payed your last days wages, it’s being paid for your consideration of the continued smooth operation of the business. Her former employer has received the full benefit of her adherence to polite custom and is now stiffing her on their end of the social contract.
BUT, yeah. Without any sort of contract spelling out the conditions of termination of employment, she’s doesn’t have any demonstrable claim to the pay for the unworked week.
I think there is some confusion here, she was not screwed out of a week of pay, she was screwed out of a week of WORK. She doesn’t feel entilted to another week of pay, she feels entitled to another work week (for which she would be paid).
So no, there’s nothing your friend can do, not anything that’s easy or worth while anyways.
She can make sure all of her coworkers know about the company’s policy. That way, the company gets to deal with workers leaving with less than two weeks notice, and none of the workers would feel the slightest bit bad about it.
Unemployment usually doesn’t cover the first week with no job. And I’m guessing that she’ll be employed again for the second week. So she’s stuck with a week with no work and no pay.
That’s interesting, and I’m sure it’s different state to state. The last time I was unemployed, it was for exactly a work week, too. “First timers” (e.g., me) had to go to a special class to sit with people that couldn’t understand simple form instructions and be led through the paperwork like a bunch of kindergarteners. One of the questions was if we’d already had a job offer, which I certainly did, and it was for the following Monday. I was entitled to that week of pay anyway, but only couldn’t begin receiving benefits for two weeks. As it turned out, I wasn’t hurting and was too lazy to follow through with the state’s silly, strict calendar of how to receive that check, so I never actually bothered to collect.
In fact, now that I think of it, you can get unemployment for “short work week” if your employer sends you home. You’ve got to be a full-time employee, and of course the employer kicks into that fund.
You should have her check with Texas’ state agency; there’s probably something she can do, and it would hurt the ex-employer, too, because their rates will increase or at least be subject to increase.
Is it possible that she could have stayed the extra week if she wanted to?
In many situations, “you don’t have to work” is a polite way of saying, “You’re fired.” But in some cases, it may simply mean “you don’t have to work, but you can if you want.” In other words, perhaps the manager was informing her that her services were not as critical as she might have thought, and that the company will survive without her help, and so she has the option of leaving now or staying the whole two weeks.
If the manager’s real intention was that she must leave now, I think that it would be entirely proper and fair for the other employees to know about this precedent-setting event, so that they can act accordingly when they find new jobs.
