A: A few years ago we had a bad experience when an employee gave their two-week notice and then went around slacking and bad-mouthing the company to coworkers. This got so bad we asked him to leave a week early, although we paid him for the whole notice period and for accrued vacation. This had never happened before, and I didn’t expect it to happen again, but it has. We now have an employee who after she resigned, started calling-in sick, and being generally uncooperative. Is there some way to prevent this from happening yet again?
Q: Most employees know that after submitting a resignation, one should try to be helpful, assist in the transition, perhaps train ones’ replacement, be gracious at the farewell lunch (if there is one), and not burn bridges during the exit interview. But if you run a business or manage people for long enough, sooner or later you’ll encounter someone who didn’t get the memo and develops a case of “short-timer’s” disease after resigning. Although this is a rare occurrence, when it happens, it stings.
So what are we to do?
We can’t completely prevent bad behavior. But we can discourage it by leveraging the few carrots we have left after a resignation: paying for accrued vacation, and eligibility for re-hire.
If you have an employee handbook you probably already have a section titled “Resignation Policy” or “Leaving the Company” that states: “Employees are expected to give a minimum 2 week notice. Providing inadequate or no notice will forfeit payment of accrued leave and your eligibility for re-hire.” But you need to go further.
What you could do as an employer is to re-word the policy to add other behaviors to the list that disqualifies you from getting paid accrued leave or being eligible for re-hire. For instance something like: “Engaging in behavior that harms employee morale, productivity, customer relationships or is otherwise disruptive will forfeit…..”
If all this sounds a little too negative and punitive and you want your handbook to sound upbeat, you could instead list your expectations. For example: “After resigning, employees are expected to assist in the job transition, handover workload/projects as to minimize disruption or service to our clients and to maintain satisfactory work performance and conduct themselves professionally.” And leave it at that.
Hopefully this inoculates you from having to deal with the problem again.
©Copyright Eva Del Rio
Eva Del Rio is creator of HR Box™ – tools for small businesses and startups. Send questions to Eva@evadelrio.com
