The company I work for went through a round of layoffs last summer.
All laid off employees were give a MONTH notice. They could either come into the office and use the office resources for their job hunt or stay home - their choice. They weren’t expected to work - or be available for questions. On top of that, they got a severance package, which varied by length of service.
It does happen.
But, employees (and employers) in the US are under no obligation to give notice. I’ve left a job with no notice when I’ve felt that they don’t deserve notice (an employer who fired an employee that had given notice shortly before). Notice doesn’t buy the company anything - it takes longer than two weeks to get the headcount req written up and approved and an ad in the paper - it takes months to get someone hired and trained and up to speed.
There is a management problem where one person (or two) becoming suddenly unavailable creates a huge problem. What if they hadn’t quit, but had been in a bad car accident and been hospitalized? What if one of them suddenly had a parent on death’s door and had to take a few weeks off for the dying and funeral at the same time another went on bed rest and maternity leave for four months?
I’d guess that somewhere in the last decade of more and more people feeling a complete lack of loyalty being given FROM the companies they work for, this would be the natural effect. Because many people feel that the company they work for could care less about them, they more and more feel no need to care anything about the company.
Dangerosa, I really wish I could answer your question. Unfortunately, since I am not a Director, nor am I part of meetings amongs Center/Reigonal Directors, I am not aware of why it is so hard for them to find a replacement. Like I said, none of the coaches can do it; they can’t be taught how do do everything in so little time, and then there’s the fact that none of the Coaches can work full time because we all are students.
Perhaps I’m being a little melodramatic. When I first started, there was another director there with nearly as much experience as the Center Director. She had some great HR skills and all the Coaches really got along well with her. She got promoted to Center Director and was transferred to run her own SCORE! center; after she left things seemed to fall apart here.
All I can really do as Coach is assure parents and members that everything will be fine, and to try to ensure that their own service is not affected by the situation. I work at the lower rung of the heirarchy at the center, so I have little control over what goes on but lots of responsibility when things like this happen. It can be a little stressful to have to cope with things beyond your control.