Take this job and shove it!

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

Richard Laermer, CEO of New York-based RLM PR, has noticed a disturbing trend lately. Employees who quit aren’t giving the customary two weeks’ notice, and some are even breaking noncompete agreements they signed.

“It’s the weirdest thing,” he says. “After 19 years of doing this job, as a CEO no less, I find myself shocked at how people are doing this.”

Laermer suspects it all started after he announced layoffs in November and then canceled the Christmas party.

Many of the employees felt angry and nervous, and they wondered if the axe might fall on them, he surmises. And despite his efforts to quell employees’ fears, saying he’d borrow money if he had to before he made another job cut, some workers bolted for new jobs — without any concern about burning bridges.

At a time when so many companies are laying off workers, slashing wages and benefits, and instituting furloughs, it’s not surprising that some employees feel no obligation to be nice when they head out the door, says David Kaplan, management professor for Saint Louis University. “It’s understandable,” he adds, “because they feel the employer has violated the psychological contract with employees, and they don’t feel they owe them anything.”

S.T.G, an employee for a Chicago-based general contractor who did not want his full name used because he didn't want to jeopardize his job, says his employer instituted an array of cutbacks about a month ago — including reductions in pay, vehicle allowance and sick days — and announced a mandatory one-week furlough for the end of the summer.

“This is on top of cost measures at the beginning of the year, which included salary freezes across the board, no bonuses paid out and stopping 401K matching,” he says.

The slashing prompted one of his co-workers to quit as soon as he found a job that paid better. “He resigned and left that day. No two weeks’ notice,” he adds.

S.T.G. has one question: “If your employer has cut your salary and benefits to where your family is struggling financially, do you owe your employer that two weeks’ notice when you leave?”

‘No one is playing nice anymore’
Whether it’s giving notice, training your replacement or abiding by noncompete agreements you may have signed, these post-employment niceties that were expected once upon a time are not a given in today’s workplace.

“I think it’s a function of the economy,” says Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute. “If your employer has been treating you well, morally you should give as much notice as you can. On the other hand, if your boss is screwing you, you don’t want to be nice.

“It’s a dog fight out there. No one is playing nice anymore. This is more ethics than law.”

Indeed, you’re not legally obligated to give notice, unless you have a detailed employment contract that says you have to. But even in that case, Maltby adds, few employers will sue you for not doing so because it’s not worth the time and expense.

“Most employers will be accommodating,” says John Verderese, leader of the talent management group at PricewaterhouseCoopers, “because most employers know, once employees make a decision to leave, their mind is elsewhere.”

If you’re so mad at your former employer and take company secrets and clients with you, or go to work for your company’s competitor even though you signed a noncompete agreement, that could be another story.

Randy Kahnke, an attorney with Faegre & Benson, says it all depends on which state you live in and the type of contract you entered into with your employer.

“Noncompetes are governed by state law,” he explains. “Florida, for example, is an example of a pro-employer state, where California prohibits enforcement of noncompetes.”

It also depends on whether you were laid off or you left a job voluntarily. “In Michigan, if a noncompete covenant reads that it only applies in circumstances of ‘voluntary termination,’ then involuntary termination does not preclude the employee from working for a competitor,” he adds.

In matters where an employee’s pay was cut and they were periodically furloughed, a worker could argue that the employer didn’t live up to their end of the agreement of providing full employment, says New York labor attorney Mark Risk.

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