As a business owner, you may have noticed that most employees who decide to move on to other jobs give two weeks’ notice. This is generally considered a professional courtesy and a matter of common business etiquette. Providing advance notice allows you to prepare your team, hire a replacement and take other steps to keep the business running smoothly.
However, you may encounter situations where an employee quits with no notice at all. In those cases, employees are often correct in pointing out that there is no legal requirement to provide notice when leaving a job, as long as they are at-will employees.
As a business owner, you may acknowledge that employees have the legal right to quit at any time. But are there steps you can take to require advance notice in the future?
Using employment contracts
One option is to use employment contracts instead of hiring at-will employees. These contracts can be relatively simple and may include a requirement that the employee provide two weeks’ notice – or another amount of time, which is at your discretion – before resigning.
This approach does not change the employment law itself, but it does change the nature of the employment relationship. The employee is no longer employed at will and is instead bound by the terms of the contract they agreed to. If you consistently use employment contracts for your workforce, employees who fail to provide notice could be in violation of the agreement.
Situations like this can sometimes lead to disputes between employers and employees. That is why it is important to understand the legal options available and how to structure employment contracts.