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Forgery on a W-4 and Employment Contract

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Mark_A

Active Member
And...it is NOT the norm for the employer to go ahead and pay the departing employee for the two weeks even if they immediately let them go. Some employers do, but that is the exception rather than the rule.
If counting the number of businesses that will pay an employee for the two weeks, even if company asks them to leave before the two weeks are up (after employee gives two week notice), then you are probably correct, but I would bet the majority of the 5,000 largest companies in the US will pay them for the two weeks if they ask the employee leave sooner. The reason is that most of these companies have a policy that if an employee does not give two weeks notice, they might not be eligible for rehire. In some cases where such a policy exists, if an employee gives two weeks notice and the company tells them they must leave immediately and will not pay them for the full two weeks, the employee "may" be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits during the two week period. And certainly, other employees are going to hear about someone not getting paid for two weeks if they give two weeks notice and are asked to leave immediately, and that can have an undesirable effect on future resignations if the company generally wants resigning employees to give two weeks notice.

But in cases where it is likely that the resigning employee is going to compete with the company in their new job, a company wants to sever all relationships as soon as possible and not pay them for two weeks, and that sounds like the case here. The situation might also be different for hourly employees where the company has plenty of other people doing the same job that they can use to backfill the position and don't really care if employees give two weeks notice. It is never a good idea to give four weeks notice in the US, because that is not traditional or expected. If the company wants more than two weeks notice, let them bring that subject up.
 


Mark_A

Active Member
It remains all guesses unless someone can provide reliable statistics.
One thing I have found is that HR people in corporate America tend to attend the same HR conferences, and end up having very similar HR policies. I have experienced this situation at least 6 times as a manager receiving two weeks notice from an employee, or resigning myself (where the resigning employee did not stay for the two weeks but got paid for the two weeks).

In addition to companies being concerned about stealing their customers, often times they are concerned about their remaining employees being recruited to work at the same company the resigning employee went to. One time an employee working for me at high tech company gave 2 weeks notice, and during our conversation I asked him if his new employer was looking for additional people. He thought I was inquiring about myself, so he said he was pretty sure they were looking for more people. I was concerned about losing my other employees to the same company, so I told him to leave by the end of the day and the company would pay him for the two weeks notice he gave.

But the case discussed in this thread is clearly different than normal, and I think the company was justified for doing what they did.
 

quincy

Senior Member
One thing I have found is that HR people in corporate America tend to attend the same HR conferences, and end up having very similar HR policies. I have experienced this situation at least 6 times as a manager receiving two weeks notice from an employee, or resigning myself (where the resigning employee did not stay for the two weeks but got paid for the two weeks).

In addition to companies being concerned about stealing their customers, often times they are concerned about their remaining employees being recruited to work at the same company the resigning employee went to. One time an employee working for me at high tech company gave 2 weeks notice, and during our conversation I asked him if his new employer was looking for additional people. He thought I was inquiring about myself, so he said he was pretty sure they were looking for more people. I was concerned about losing my other employees to the same company, so I told him to leave by the end of the day and the company would pay him for the two weeks notice he gave.

But the case discussed in this thread is clearly different than normal, and I think the company was justified for doing what they did.
Interesting.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Just took a straw poll on one of my HR boards. So far I have six "Yes, we pay out unworked notice"; One "We do where I am now but we didn't at my old employer" and one "We do for exempts, not usually for non-exempts but we've made occasional exceptions".
 

Mark_A

Active Member
Just took a straw poll on one of my HR boards. So far I have six "Yes, we pay out unworked notice"; One "We do where I am now but we didn't at my old employer" and one "We do for exempts, not usually for non-exempts but we've made occasional exceptions".
One of the tricky things for exempt (salary) employees is that when they find another job, they usually negotiate a start date with the new company before they give notice to the old company, and the start date is in the signed offer letter. If the employee assumes that the old company wants two weeks notice, and negotiates a start date at the new company after the two weeks, and then the old company says they want the employee to leave immediately and they won't get paid for the two weeks notice, that creates a lot of ill will, since it is not always easy to change the start date at the new company.
 

Mark_A

Active Member
Interesting. I would have thought the responses would be different.
Most companies want employees to give two weeks notice when they resign, or the employee may not be eligible for rehire. Given that, I don't think the response is surprising at all. I have been rehired by 3 different companies I previously worked for.
 

quincy

Senior Member
Most companies want employees to give two weeks notice when they resign, or the employee may not be eligible for rehire. Given that, I don't think the response is surprising at all. I have been rehired by 3 different companies I previously worked for.
Apparently you were a valuable employee and left these three employers on good terms.
 

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