When you quit a job and give two weeks' notice, and your bosses tell you to leave immediately, do you get paid for those two weeks?

I would guess, no.

EDIT There are multiple factors to consier. e.g. What was your relationship w/ your employer? Did you leave on good terms? Are you hourly or salaried?

Typically, any employer can let you go w/out cause….i.e. they don’t have to have a reason. They aren’t obligated to pay you the two weeks, however they should pay you for vacation time.

When someone is leaving, often the employer will want them gone ASAP so as not to cause uphevel w/ other employees. If you are leaving on reasonable terms, the employer would do well to pay you the two weeks, whether obligated to do so or not, so that there are no “hard feelings” on your part….

I’m from NY. The answer to your question is “not usually”.

You should. once you’ve done due diligence and “warned” them, you’ve upheld your end of the deal.

if they don’t (say you’re an hourly employee), you should at least get whatever vacation you’ve earned, if you have that.

Very unlikely. You didn’t work them.

If New York is an employment at will state and you have no contract with the employer stating otherwise, there’s no requirement for them to pay you.

On the other hand, every time I’ve heard of an amicable split (i.e., the employee is leaving on good terms to pursue other opportunities), the employee has either worked the entire two weeks for pay or been paid despite not having worked those two weeks.

Remember something. What does the job CARE if you get mad at them for not paying? You’re out of there anyway.

It would depend on what you signed when hiring on. Many companies have the terminate at will notice and you will receive nothing.

“At will” is a state thing. NY is an “at will” state which means they can fire you at the drop of a hat. There ARE exceptions, however.

I’ve never heard of people getting paid for time they didn’t work.

No but then you can leave them an upper decker in the rest room which is not worth 2 weeks pay but will sure leave a lasting memory of your time at the firm.

NY is an employment at will state, so they can ask you to leave at any time with no reason. If you have a hiring contract that says otherwise, that is a different story. But event then, they could withhold the pay until the courts force them to remit if you decide to go to the expense of suing.

Like fireside mentioned. NY is a good place for business but sucks when you’re fired. There has to be some sort of attractant for business when you have the taxes that we have.

@Mr_M Texas is an “at will” state but there still has to be documented reasons before someone can be fired unless they are still within their probabtionary period. There are ways around that though such as layoffs and terminating positions.

@ptarnbsn – as far as I know, the only reason needed for documentation in NY is if the employer intends to fight the payout of unemployment benefits.

Per the thread about how to quit, in California, if you don’t pay out the two weeks, the employee can file for UI. Since there is a waiting period to collect benefits, if s/he goes to the new job. However if there is no other job you might end up paying 9 mos benefits from your account because it was a dismissal. That, along with the bad karma of an unhappy former employer badmouthing your company, seems pennywise and pound foolish.

BTW does everyone realize that their is a 13 week period back to where the benefits kick in. If an employee leaves you for a new job and is laid off in less than 1 quarter, it is your UI account that is charged. Another reason to maintain a good relationship and try to give a reasonable recommendation instead of sticking it to the employee.

When I worked in HR, generally it was advised that no, they wouldn’t receive the 2 weeks, but they would receive the balance of the sick days and vacation days. Employees that are asked to leave, immediately are at times not key employees that would need to be around for the transition or to get their team up-to-date on projects. that’s a general rule of thumb. If, however, an employer thinks someone might cause discord among a team – they are more likely to be let go, immediately. Some companies just exercise that right as a matter of policy. It might not be something within the manager’s control.

I did work for one boss that was just spiteful. If anyone turned in their notice, she made a huge deal about asking them to leave and having them escorted out. Pretty ridiculous.

NC is an “at will” state, as well; however, most employers realize that even though it’s an at will state, they still do what they need to do to cover all the bases. (warnings, probation and then fire the employee.) Even “at will” employers are open to wrongful termination suits.

@cak: was there a difference between the employee leaving of his or her own will versus being terminated?

@cwilbur – As far as receiving the pay – (vacation /sick pay – but not the two weeks?) – at our company, no. Generally it was done as a way to be “finished” with the employee and not to have any issue left undone. They wanted all loose ends to be finalized quickly and to prevent any question in the final pay. I’m assuming you are talking about the final pay issue. When someone was terminated, the company I worked for did pay the sick and vacation pay to prevent any headache and to lessen the chance of someone complaining that they were treated unfairly. That is generally an option exercised by a company, out of goodwill. and to protect their reputation within the community. Not all companies exercise that belief, but it really can go a long way to protect the reputation within the community. The terminated employee can say yes, they were terminated, but they still received all the pay they felt that they were due. You’d be surprised how much that cuts down on complaints.

In a lot of the continuing education classes and conferences that I attended, there were always discussions on how a company can head off the ill feelings. When someone is terminated, it’s generally not an easy process, for anyone. How can a company mitigate the ill feelings, cut down on any bad PR? Pay more than the employee expects to get, is a very easy way to do this.

@cak: so if a person said to his or her manager, “I resign, effective two weeks from Friday,” would your company have kept him or her working through that final date? Or would it have told them to clean out his or her desk, and not come in the following workday? And if the latter, would the company have paid the worker through the end of the two weeks’ notice?

I’m not talking about terminations initiated by the employer here—I’m talking about an employee in good standing who has decided to leave for other reasons.

What I’ve seen in the past is employers either keeping the person on the job until the end of the two weeks or paying the person through his or her last day but not requiring him or her to come in to work. The rationale I’ve heard here is that if you make it known that giving two weeks’ notice means being escorted to the door and not paid for the next two weeks, then employees won’t bother giving notice, and that’s a bigger headache than just paying people. But at the same time, an employee who knows he or she is leaving is likely to be less productive and more tempted to mischief, and so if the employee deals with sensitive information or has special access, it’s safer to just escort him or her (politely) to the door and pay him or her through the remaining two weeks.

@cwilbur – I can see where my first comment made it sound like the company I worked for let everyone go, and didn’t allow them to work the two weeks. I should have put a paragraph break in there! The company I work for would only dismiss immediately, non-essential employees that posed a problem for the staff. Lack of productivity, negative attitude – any number of issues- along those lines. Most of the time, we saw it coming (that they wanted to leave) or they were on the verge of being terminated, anyway. (This was a country club – at this point, I worked for the company that managed several country clubs, but I was one of the few employees that had a function within the club – as well as with the management company.) Someone on the banquet staff, one of the golf guys – waitstaff – someone in those types of positions would be asked to leave early, if it was felt that they would have a negative impact on the rest of the staff.

That company had it clearly spelled out that they would not pay the 2 weeks, if someone was asked to leave immediately. From their standpoint, the person was already too disruptive and needed to be removed, immediately. I’m not saying I agreed with their point of view – I’ve always felt that if someone turned in the notice, they should be paid, but this company would not pay the two weeks. all of this BS is why I left HR and became an event planner! There was nothing that compelled the company to pay the 2 weeks and believe me, whatever they could have gotten away with not paying, they would exercise that right.

Oh, being the person that had to escort the people out, that were asked to leave early, oh how that sucked! It is always best to be polite and try to be understanding, too. I saw a lot of younger employees that just haven’t learned how to be a good employee, yet, fired. It can be a huge blow to a person.

Unfortunately, until it’s spelled out in the letter of the law that forces a company to pay that time, those that want to save those two weeks, will.

I hope this makes sense!

Lol.. you got fired twice haha

You should get paid for every day you worked regardless of the outcome.

I walked off of a job where my boss was really disrespectful telling him the reason I was leaving and he paid me every cent to the day I left and on top of that he gave me a termination benefit.

You should be paid for every single day you worked.