Two Weeks' Notice

I have been told I tend to take the side of the economist in some debates. It was this mode of thinking that had me contemplating the device of giving two weeks notice when resigning. I was pecking this out at Austin International Airport a few days ago when I arrived uncharacteristically early for a plane that left unacceptably late.

Rather than post it at the time, I wanted to get some perspective. It is quite easy to find the standard advice. It took just a little more digging to find someone who advised against the traditional approach.

James Carlini is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University and his advice is to take your personal effects home a day or two before your last day and then give notice and be done with it on the spot. He wrote a follow up article and both have a lot of comments that are worth skimming.

His point is that not only do companies no longer have any loyalty towards their employees, but giving notice can actually put you at risk and in many cases, the need to maintain SarbOx security compliance may make it more tempting to just walk you out the door. I don't really disagree with Mr. Carlini, but I don't like to operate from a place where my primary focus is simply risk mitigation.

The traditional approach advises you to "not burn any bridges" and to consider what kind of reference you will get of you leave without notice. Setting aside that some people may have contractual obligations to live up to, most of the United States is working under "at will" employment. Depending on local laws, your former employer might not have to pay you for your vacation days or they might label you as "ineligible for rehire" and of course, that could come out in a reference.

My take was based more on the economics of the transition. First, there is no worse time for a recruiter than the time immediately after one of our candidates accepts an offer until the time that person reports for work at their new job. It does not matter how great the opportunity, how large the increase, how horrible their old company is, we do not get paid until they show up and in that dangerous, agonizing time, literally anything can happen.

Believe me - there is nobody in the world that wants to eliminate the tradition of "two weeks' notice" more than the third party recruiter. We tell everyone to give two weeks notice because we do not want to sound ridiculously self serving. Two weeks is bad enough, but when people say they want to give 3 or 4 or more, we freak out.

It's not the waiting, not at all. It's that Murphy's Law kicks in and most people can't afford to keep a Murphy's Lawyer on retainer. Just last week, a recruiter I know placed a CIO with his client in Houston. Everything was on track until the candidate gave notice. The CEO of a $5Billion company flew from Chicago to Houston that same morning and spent the entire day talking him into staying. That can only happen when someone gives notice.

Rarely do business trends emerge as a result of what recruiters want. The real reason I believe this practice is going to decline sooner rather than later is economics. 2 weeks in business today is much longer than it was 20 years ago. Product cycles are shorter, companies are smaller and more nimble and 2 weeks represents, as a percentage, a much larger chunk of any business plan than it did before the internet. Compounding the situation is the impending  labor shortage which is going to take the battle for talent out of the bronze age and into the nuclear age.

I predict that in the next 5 years, we will begin to see sign on bonuses structured around giving little to no notice for certain kinds of workers. This will probably be seen as an abomination by the more traditional minded, but many Gen X/Y workers will see it as the logical result of the shift in the employment paradigm that began in the 1980s. When you start treating individuals like mini corporations whose services you can engage or decline on an almost hour by hour basis, it should not be surprising that people start to act like corporations and begin making business decisions based on what is best for "Me, Inc".

Comments

[Penelope Trunk]

Congratulations on the new blog! And this is a great post because it's a new answer to a really common question.

I get this question all the time: How much notice should I give?

And I think the reason people are asking this question so often is because they know the custom is two weeks, but people are instinctively feeling that two weeks is too long for today's workplace. You give weight to peoples' instinct and I think that's the sign of a smart take on a new problem.

Penelope