re: Why do you have(traditionally) to give a two weeks notice, but your company can

Unless you are working under contract, neither party is required to give notice or even a reason to end employment...

it is a generally accepted courtesy for an employee to give a couple of weeks notice and for an employer to provide some amount of severance pay...not required of either, though.

The two weeks is for your coworkers and network, not for your employer.

You don't have to give two weeks notice. They don't have that power over you.

When you quit, it is presumed that they're, generally, happy with you at the time. Many companies do not want someone with a foot halfway out the door and will dispense with the 2-weeks notice. However, some need coverage or transition efforts from you - perhaps possessing knowledge or relationships that no one else at your company has.

On the other hand, when you're given notice, you're very often offered your next paycheck, at a minimum, as severance (effectively pay for no work) - and that should be all one expects. Plus, you're eligible for unemployment in many cases, which softens the blow of being fired. And, the last thing they want is someone with access to company property, customers and computers who has already been discharged. In all but the most organized and planned layoffs (with a lot of trust in the employees in these cases), this is a nightmare scenario for management.

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fr33manator

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Antiquated notion from a different time.

Designed to guilt an employee to give his employer a chance to work against him. Now if an employee wants to keep an amicable relationship with his former employer and give them time to train a replacement, then by all means they should.

But don't cling to some tenacious code of "how things are done" without good reason. It's a dog eat dog world and your employer would not likely give you the same consideration.

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Like you as a poster but that's a staggeringly ignorant statement bro.

If you have a good relationship with your employer, leaving them high-and-dry will prevent you from ever leaning on the experience you got there and the accomplishments you achieved there other than writing about them on your resume or talking about them in an interview.

NEVER underestimate the power of a recommendation letter or a phonecall for a reference. They can make or absolutely break you when looking for new opportunities.

Now, if you are in almost any type of professional position that's sales-based or commission-related, there's no such thing as a two-week notice. Most employers aren't going to let you sit around sucking up clients and leads and telling your existing book-that you very well may have built up using the employer's resources and marketing $-that you're leaving, etc.

Most of those are, "I'm leaving, today's my last day." If you're in a Supervisory position in commissioned sales, that advice doesn't apply as you need to hand off things like pipeline management, a high-level overview of your team, and potentially give a recommendation for the type of replacement for a group that you may have been responsible in large measure for bringing on.

But at the end of the day, many employers do let folks know layoffs are coming. But some don't. Conversely, many folks let their employers know their departure is coming. Some don't.

There is no requirement-on either end of the employer/employee relationship-to do so. It's just called professional etiquette, foresight, and proper planning.