Employee Quits - Then wants to come back

lnelson

We have a supervisor who quit earlier today leaving us high and dry. 3 hours later calls another supervisor in another dept. and tells him he wants to give us his two week notice instead. The supervisor relays the information to the VP of the company she does not want to do this. After he quit we brushed ourselves off and began filling in the gaps. EE did not have a good working relationship with many of his co-workers we are not worried about covering the position. What is our responsibility to this ee we are an At-will state (CA)?

MrCreosote

Sorry, but your previous resignation has been accepted. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours.

HR in CA

I totally agree with the previous post. However I had this happen recently and we did just that, "We have accepted your resignation, we wish you well." The employee then said he never quit, it was all a misunderstanding, but we stood our ground! Now EDD (the unemployment department) has ruled it was neither a resignation or a termination, it was a misunderstanding, and our account will be subject to charges. I am appealing this decision, but I don't even have a appeals date yet. I bet we lose, just the way the rulings have been going. But even if we do, we are rid of a problem employee who quit to get a reaction. Money well spent in the long run.

Many years ago I had an employee given notice, then change his mind 42 times within the two week notice. I thought I would scream. What I didn't know is that everytime he changed his mind he went home and loaded or unloaded the moving truck. There was so much more going on with him, but until this happened we didn't fully understand.

Stick to you guns, justbe prepared to pay unemployment.

lnelson

HR - Thanks for you response fortunately I was there when he was exiting the building and asked him where he was going and he told me that he was quitting. I did not stop him but I did try to get the reason he mumbled something and left.

Rockie

There is no legal obligation for an employer to accept a rescinded resignation. Some employers make the mistake of taking back a "problem child" such as this when they are short staffed. Sounds like you started immediately to address this issue. Don't take him back!

Crout

Rockie is correct, but don't forget that you work in the Republic of California and so you may end up paying his Unemployment.

LeeR

It may well be worth the price of unemployment to keep this person out of the picture. I would really question how much damage he could do to employee morale etc if allowed to stay two more weeks.

Zanne

Sometimes unemployment is cheap compared to what departing employees can do.

Also - we have instituted having blank resignation forms handy so that when someone says they quit and head for the door, a supervisor (or HR person) can head them off and have them date and sign the resignation.

Ta Da!