Can you tell employees they have to give notice before they quit? 

For years, employees who wanted to quit working at your company have given you two weeks’ notice. However, you just had someone walk off the job with no notice whatsoever, and it really created a lot of problems for the business.

As a result, you informed the rest of the employees that everyone would need to give a month of notice before quitting. Are you allowed to do this?

Employees have no legal obligations

At-will employees do not have a legal obligation to give you any sort of notice at all. This is true even if you tell them that you want them to. That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to ask them to do it, but you can’t force them to do it because there is no legal requirement. At-will employees have the right to quit whenever they want.

If you want to make sure that everyone follows this rule, one way to do it would be to give your employees contracts. This means that they are not at-will employees anymore, and they have to abide by the rules of that contract. 

Of course, that doesn’t guarantee that someone won’t breach it, but you may have legal recourse if they do. Additionally, simply putting everything in writing and getting a contract in place makes it less likely that an employee would do this. They’ll know what’s expected up front and everyone will be on the same page.

You just want to run your business smoothly and profitably. If you run into any sort of legal issues while doing so, it’s very important to understand all of the steps you can take.  Contact us to see how we can help.