Another vote to wait until after the bonus. If they have a tough time with knowledge transfer, that’s basically their own fault for setting up such strong incentives to say nothing.
If a company is willing to screw its employees, don’t bother to giving them the benefit of the doubt
Why don’t you just give your notice on July 1, effective in two weeks? You don’t burn any bridges and you guarantee your bonus.
Some additional details: I had some preliminary discussions with my new boss around start date, and we agreed on 7/8. This was a little further out than he wanted, but I explained I needed to work through July 1 in order to get my bonus. I’ve got a family trip planned the week of Forth of July, so that’s not a favorable week to start. Anyways, as I’m now actually beginning the process of extricating myself from my current company, I learned that there is language in the policy that may cause me to forfeit my bonus if I give notice before 6/30. I emailed my new boss to ask if we could place my start date a week later, so I can give two weeks notice on 7/1 and be clear of any potential bs around the bonus period.
I haven’t heard back from him, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request, even in light of the 6 weeks between acceptance and start. If he doesn’t respond by Monday I will call him.
I already accepted the offer of employment, so it’s really only start date at this point that’s up in the air. I hope he doesn’t think I’m flaking out on him…
The new boss is going to want you to start yesterday…but given the timing and effort to restart the search process to the fill the role again, he’ll ultimately cave in to your wishes.
He agreed to let me start a week later, but I’ll need to get in there once a week in advance of my start date to do paperwork to get up to speed. He wasn’t too happy about it, and I don’t blame him, but “it is what it is”. That week represents a 10% bonus. So now my exit becomes less complicated. I give my notice on Monday July 1, and Friday July 15 is my last day. Two weeks. No complications with my bonus.
Any vacation time built up? I seem to remember that you are in the Commonwealth, so they have to pay you your built up vacation, or they will be paying you three times that ammount…
It could happen that you give notice and your current company walks you out the door that day. In that case, call up your new boss, tell him you’re on terminal leave, and you’ve be happy to start July 8 (or whatever). It’ll make him happy.
Yes, I have some vacation time accrued, but I will be using most of it to fulfill my agreement with new boss to come in a work one day per week in advance of my start date. I’m ok with that, though. I’ll leave this job with a few vacation bucks and my bonus, and I’m going to a really good job.
Just a heads up that may not necessarily pertain to your situation - Bonuses are generally just that, a bonus. They are at the discretion of management. Just because your plan says you have to be employed through June to get it, I would not give notice until you have received the cash. The bonus can be forfeited at any time until you receive it.
If I had an employee, and they earned a bonus and it was scheduled to pay in 3 days, but they gave 2 weeks notice today - you better believe I’m contacting payroll and telling them to withhold the bonus. It would make no sense to continue to pay it since it’s supposed to incentivise future behavior which doesn’t exist since you are leaving.
That’s a brush too broad to be accurate. Whether the bonus is discretionary or not depends on, well, whether it’s discretionary. In many cases, bonuses are formulaic (ie., based on sales targets or whatever) and non-discretionary.
Like I said, it may not necessarily pertain to the particular situation. However, in every single company I’ve worked for, including the ones where I was the administrator of the bonus program, I would withhold any bonus not yet paid upon receiving notice of future termination.
In CA (where I am), bonus pay by definition for non bargaining unit employees is discretionary. Even though they are formulaic (% of amount over net income or some thing) they are ultimately not accrued to the employee like vacation pay is (in some states) and can be forfeited without recourse. In addition, every bonus plan I have seen has clauses that state they may be modified at any time at the discretion of xyz.
My advice would be to wait until you get the cash before you give notice.
That’s how it would work at the company I work for. You get the bonus if you were an employee through Dec. 31, but the payout isn’t until “sometime” in March, and I think you need to be an employee on that date as well to actually get anything. (If you left in February, too bad. If you were on maternity leave or something like that, it’s OK, but you have to come back and work for at least 6 weeks before they give you the money. I know some new moms who did just that, and then quit for good once they got the money.)
My husband, about 5 years ago, used to work at the same company I work for now. When he quit, he ran into a situation similar to the OP’s, except he had worked through the Dec. 31 period to be eligible for the bonus, but was waiting for the payout in March. He did actually give the long notice and it worked out for him, but it could have backfired (although you never heard of a good, long term employee at that company asked to leave before the end of their notice back then.)
So much has changed in the past 5 years that I would certainly not employ the same strategy today. There is no way I would give more than two weeks’ notice, and if I wanted my bonus, I would not put in notice until the check was in my hot little hand.