Resignation - Changed Mind

bamahr · July 2003

I have an employee who put in a three week notice. This allowed us to recall an employee that we laid off. The employee who resigned is at the end of his notice and decides he does not want to leave. We have already had the laid-off employee working. The Manager wants to let the employee who resigned change his mind and lay-off the other worker again.

I don't want to do this - for many reasons. Ethically and morally it is wrong. What about legally? I almost don't care about legally it is just wrong.

HR in CA · July 2003

Your statement to the former employee should be, "We have decided to honor your resignation". In California our unemployment account will be charged, but in the long run, its a small price to pay. There was a similar post a week or two ago. Did you get the resignation in writing?

HR in CA · July 2003

See post Employee Quits - Then wants to come back

LindaS · July 2003

I don't think there is any legal issues here that would prevent you from "honoring" the employee's resignation. I have been in both situations where we have allowed an employee to stay as well as not allowing an employee to rescind his resignation. In my opinion, allowing the employee to stay creates more of a hardship for the company as well as morale problems for other employees. Allowing an employee to provide their notice, then rescind it and maintain their position, creates a mentality with other employees that they can do the same thing so if an employee becomes angry, or feels they deserve something, they give their notice without any thought to the consequences of their actions. It also creates problems with the employee you have brought in to replace the departing employee. In addition, the attitude of the employee allowed to stay becomes one of "I'm irreplaceable".

On the other hand, NOT allowing an employee to rescind a resignation sends a strong message to other employees to think long and hard before deciding to resign from their position, especially in the heat of anger or frustration.

Just my thoughts - hope it helps.

Balloonman · July 2003

Linda is on the money. Unless they were leaving to take care of an ill parent or because of a spouses' transfer that fell apart they will quit again. Accept it keep the good employee that was recalled an be done with it.
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

Rockie · July 2003

Simply advise manager. "The employee resigned, we filled his position, we do not have a position available for him". You are absolutely correct it would not be "right" in any sense of the word to terminate the "laid off" worker simply because someone had a change of heart about resigning If you had not filled the position, it might be a different story (if you wanted to retain the person). In some states, this would probably be classified as a "wrongful discharge".

Judith · July 2003

My theory is if you do the right thing for the right reason you will get the right result. You have already stated you think it is wrong -- I agree with all the others. You have to also think about the laid off employees -- perhaps this employee can come back under the same circumstances as the laid off employees.

bamahr · July 2003

I think we should honor our word to the employee we re-called. If we were allowed to keep both employees - I would not object to him changing his mind. Because we cannot financially keep both - I do not want to allow him to change his mind.

This is very frustrating .

Thanks for the input.

Caroliso · July 2003

I agree with the majority of the opinions above. It is a difficult position to be in, particularly if you have a reluctant manager, but the right thing to do is honor your hire offer to the recalled employee.

I heard a similar story from a former co-worker who dropped by to visit. Through a headhunter he had been courted for a payroll position that would have him move cross-country. He was flown out for interviews and was offered the job. He returned and gave his notice. Somewhere along the way of finalizing the arrangments he learned that the company did not plan to pay moving costs (the headhunter had said they would). He could not afford to do so and the deal fell through. He went back to his current employer, where he was in his final days before the original end date, but they had already filled the position. Luckily he bounced back with a new position after several temp jobs, and your resigned employee will too.

Please let us know how this turns out, and Good Luck!

Carol

Shawn · July 2003

If you keep the employee who wants to rescind his resignation, then you will need to be prepared to do the same for the really lousy employee who quits next week and then decides he wants to stay. I would not want to create a past employment practice on this one.

bamahr · July 2003

We are not laying off the employee again - she will be able to stay. The Executive is not talking... not sure what happened. There are times I think I am talking just to hear myself talk- maybe this time they listened.

Thanks for all the posts.

tbehan · July 2003

We have just had a similar situation where an employee has requested to rescind a written resignation submitted 3 weeks earlier. This employee has not been a very productive employee, especially recently. As a result, the department is not willing to bring her back. I recommended that they advise the employee that they had already honored her resignation and will not accept her request to rescind it.

Resignation - Changed Mind

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