One of the most common questions to which employees want an answer after quitting their jobs, is whether or not their employers had the right to immediately terminate their employment without paying them through their resignation notice periods.
It’s not unusual for employers to send resigning employees packing soon after the employees hand in their resignation letters, and then refuse to pay the employees through their resignation notice periods.
Employers can generally get away with that for three reasons. For one, employers have the right to protect their businesses from last-minute theft, sabotage and nasty watercooler rumors by resigning employees.
For another, employment is “at will” in the USA, meaning that employment is presumed to be voluntary and indefinite for both employers and employees. As a result, employers have the right to terminate employment at anytime, pretty much the same as employees have the right to quit their jobs at anytime.
Lastly, wage and hour laws require employers to pay only for the hours that employees worked, not for the hours that employees intended to work by giving advanced resignation notice.
Only a few states require employers to pay through a resignation notice period and only if employers in those states require employees to give advanced notice of resignation in the first place. Some employers pay through a resignation notice period even if state laws don’t require it, some don’t.
Regardless, resigning employees are entitled to wages and pay they’ve already earned, including overtime, commissions, and accrued vacation and sick-leave pay. Under the laws for most states, resigning employees are also entitled to receive their final paychecks in a timely manner.
