It is poor ethics.

He said when he receives a two weeks notice, he fires the person on the spot.

It is an ethical courtesy they provide you 2 weeks notice. You respond by firing them.

You talk about lazy workers not working and just hanging around... okay... fire them. But the fact you get a 2 weeks and fire someone immediately is poor ethics.

If the person slacks off and does not work - then you fire them. If you have an issue where the person directly poses a risk to the bank, then fire them. Don't fire someone because you are assuming they are going to stop working. Take action when action is warranted.

By just firing anyone who hands a 2 weeks notice you are showing a complete lack of ability to accurately assess risk.

While I'm hardly an HR person, I do agree with Bob. If I give two weeks notice, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop being productive and mess around on the company’s dime. There should be some mutual respect involved in these types of decisions. A smart manager would use it as a period of transition to ensure that all of the responsibilities that the person who is leaving are identified and can be managed moving forward.

Randy is dead on. If I worked for JJ, I wouldn't even show up. I'd just move on to my new job if I new I was going to be fired on the spot.

I've only ever left two jobs. I walked out on the second one (but he doesn't count because he really was insane). Even though I was young, I worked very diligently during my two-week notice period to ensure my files and pending projects were thoroughly documented to enable the individual coming in after me to be able to know what had been done and what steps were pending. I don't think I'm an exception. There are many professionals out there, especially in the compliance industry, that would do the same.

I think it is mostly affected by the position in the bank, the person's performance and if there is anyone to immediately assume the responsibilities. Kathleen's and my experiences are similar. One early job, I was the auditor and turned in a resignation to the head of the audit committee. No slacking off - the sweetheart scheduled an Audit Committee meeting for 4:00 PM my last day.

Once I gave a month's notice - no-one there knew compliance and was working 8+ hours every day to finish and document everything and train. Got to leave at 4:30 PM the last day - woo hoo!

My experience has been similar to others - worked up to the last day to make sure projects were handed off in good shape.

Now commercial lenders are an entirely different story - they are usually asked to leave on the day they submit their resignation and are paid their two weeks. (The bank has the option on our manual, and as most would know, this is not an uncommon practice with lenders)

It is pretty common with commercial lenders but I also have seen it not done, and the lender spent the last two weeks introducing the new lender(s) and/or working with management to reassign the portfolio.

It is "situational".

I guess this is cultural, but I have never worked at a bank that just said "there is the door" to employees who resign as a general rule, regardless of level. Some things might change - access levels for high risk data, etc. - but it was not a one size fits all thing. And I have never heard of not paying out the notice period if the bank said okay, just go now. In my experience it was okay, just go now and here is your check.

Let me add that in many banks they stopped doing that with the lenders in favor of what I described above because they realize that if the lender wanted any info they already have it, have their customers' business cards and remember how to drive to their location! You can't erase what is in their head.

when i left my last job i was given a non-compete disclosure to sign saying I wouldn't go into the same line of banking i'm was doing and wouldn't contact any of their current customers...i just handed it right back and said i wasn't signing...what could they do, refuse to allow me to quit?

A little late to try for a non-compete- if you want to try for that it needs to be in an up front contract! Courts have been known to throw out non-competes that were too restrictive, like putting a lender out of work!

I have seen the practice of firing individuals as soon as they give notice and I don’t like it. I won't debate the ethics of the situation, but it leaves a bad taste for both the employee leaving and the employees that remain. If you set this as your practice you are challenging the professionalism of your employees. By firing them you are not treating them as a professional, but you expect them to act like one. If they employer doesn’t act in a professional manner why should the employee. Your pushing your employees to the point that you effectively don't get notice from your employees. Either they really don't give notice or they are mentally "unplugged" when they give notice.
Obviously you have to assess the risk of the situation and possibly reduce access etc. but I think the risk for the most part is minimal because if the employee really was going to do something (take information, assets, clients, etc.) they already have. Your only real hope is to treat your employees as professionals, and they might just act like one. If they fail to act as a professional (actually do their job after notice) then treat them as such, but if you assume a behavior your much more likely to see it.

In some cases an employer will not consider you for rehire if you fail to give 2 weeks notice.

When I left Aetna Finance (before some who are reading this were born) they had us work an extra 2 hours, 4 days a week, such as M, T, W and F, on Thanksgiving, because it wasn't overtime with a paid holiday. I had handed in my 2 weeks notice and was ready to leave at 5 that Monday. The manager told me we were working until 7. I told him I was working until 5 at which time he said I could just leave then and not come back. I packed a box and took some vacation before starting my bank job.

A policy of saying to one person, yeah we need you, stick around for two weeks, and telling another employee, you can take off now with no pay is not the right way to go IMO. I have never seen that big bank or small. The two weeks pay even when telling an employee to leave immediately says a lot about the integrity of the bank you work for.

I am not HR, but a termination policy should be consistent, I would think.

In one way, I certainly see your point. However, our organization makes the call based in large part on where you are going. Are you going into a completely new line of work? You're expected to work your final two weeks. Going to a direct competitor? There's the door...if they don't hire you immediately, we'll pay you for two weeks from accrued vacation and/or our own funds. Going to a different bank but not a competitor in market territory or type of business? Probably sticking around.

IMO, you can have general guidelines, but no two situations are the same and there has to be flexbility built in. Just needs to be established with legal counsel advice, too.

In the past, when I've put in my two-week notice I have stuck through and did more than my normal workload to prepare my replacement. I've left on good terms and was a hard worker throughout my employment. However, I've experienced working with people who, upon giving their 2-week notice, stopped working and collected their last two weeks of pay. For others picking up their slack. It's "those people" who justify terminating employment of poor workers who give their notice. Sounds like some people have an Occupy movement to attend, rather than pulling their weight at work. Just my opinion.

As Kathleen indicated, exiting employees generally grab everything they even THINK they are going to need before handing a notice, so exiting them right out the door probably won't serve to keep that from happening.

Regardless of the banks exiting practice, employees with access to sensitive personal information should be reminded (strongly!) that taking a list of their current clients, phone numbers, services, etc. is against the law and that the bank will prosecute. So if you want to remain in banking, don't even try it. A casual mention to staff that all PCs are subject to forensics upon exit doesn't hurt either (especially any employee working on commission).

I don't think it's unheard of at all to be let go in a banking atmosphere the day you turn in your two week notice. I would think that if an employee is submitting a two week notice that has been giving you problems, numerous outages (if teller), and a bad attitude it would be a security hazard to keep that individual on once that person has decided to leave. With that being said, if the employee submitting the two weeks notice has been a great employee and is considered 'trustworthy' (for lack of a better word) there would be no real reason to kick that person out the moment they turn in their two week notice. Not everyone is leaving because of a negative reason.

I gave my 2-week notice directly to HR and was asked to leave right then and was paid for my vacation and for the 2 weeks. I heard that after I left though, they changed the policy and the "departed" will not receive vacation or the 2 weeks notice money. This was after 14 years and leaving on good terms.

Who are you trying to disparage? Did it take you the full 6.5 years to come up with that post?

The post has been removed as personal attacks are not tolerated.

Wish I knew what had happened darn curiosity. Can't imagine it was worth losing your cool and saying something terrible...

It was an anonymous post on a thread over 6 years old.

Adam I get that. What would have caused someone to post out of the blue on a thread that old. That sparks a lot of curious thoughts does it not?

Not really, that is why anonymous posters are limited to just one forum. All kinds of whackadoodles use to clog all the different threads with various types of nonsense when posting anonymously.

I'm guessing (completely speculating here) that it came from a random Google search about employment policy and not a regular BOL poster.... but who knows.

Ahhh I see. I have not been around long enough to have noticed all the ways people can take advantage of good things. Whackadoodles was just used on a form here at my office cause it is a fun word thanks rlcarey.

Adam another good point. I often forget people have a lot of time and feel the need to be noticed with little chance to have anything of worth to support the noticing.