Voluntary Resignations

You can't stop people from quitting. However, you may ask employees who resign to give you some advance warning or notice. You can also ask departing employees to participate in an exit interview.

If it becomes apparent that an employee felt forced to quit, treat the situation as a firing. If an employee feels forced to quit, it’s probably a sign that you have workforce problems. You should investigate the situation and take the steps necessary to prevent it from happening again.

You can't force a departing employee to follow your procedures any more than you can make him or her stay. However, if otherwise justified, you can suggest that if the employee follows your procedures, you will provide a favorable reference.

Advance notice. Whether you want or need advance notice of resignations depends on the nature of your business. If you are in an industry where people commonly come and go, and where it’s relatively easy to find good replacements, you may not care about advance notice. If you want exiting employees to train their own replacements, a two-week notice period may be a reasonable request.

In some cases, for example, if you think workplace morale may be affected, you may decide that you don't want a lame duck employee around. If you have established a notice policy, fairness requires that you pay the person for the remainder of the notice period, if you decide that you don't want him or her to work the entire period.

If high turnover is the norm, you may want to establish a notice policy. This can be done by including it in the work rules that you give to incoming employees.

You probably can't threaten to withhold benefits or pay if a resignation procedure isn't followed. Most states have laws that require you to timely pay employees whatever they have earned.