4 week notice periods are common in the UK. Some employers negotiate longers ones, but often recognise that a leaving employee is never an asset. Usually in the first couple of weeks I will carry on as if I am still at the company forever as it does take time to sink in. Tidy up tasks, work etc. Then the last couple of weeks is tapering off, knowledge transfers etc.
Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
51–60 of 75 posts
Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
#52I usually switch from 'work' to 'dumping everything in my head that I haven't already documented in to a doc'. I've never really been sure if anyone ever reads the doc. I guess that means I stop working. EDIT: You're on day 4 with 6 more to go, so that means you're giving 10 days notice? My current contract says I need to give 3 months. Most roles prior to that have been 4 weeks. What sort of job has such a short not…
Haha I'm in the USA. Labor protections don't really exist but neither do obligations, I couldn't imagine giving 4 weeks+ notice unless it's around the holidays or something.
Early in my career I just did the standard '2 weeks' thing, but as I progressed I extended to 4 (and in one case I gave 6). In my mind, I thought it was respectful to the company, helped soften the blow on finding a replacement, gave loads of time to recruit/promote and transfer knowledge, etc.
But after reflection, that was a mistake. 4-6 weeks is an eternity in product & engineering time. Too much time to sit around and work-but-not-really-work, and was ultimately disrespectful to my staff, peers, and myself.
My current place has an unwritten rule to not allow notice periods of longer than 2 weeks. When someone resigns, just cut it off and move on. We suffered in knowledge transfer in a few cases, but that's been rare. If it takes longer than that to transition, we probably have other problems.
Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
#53When I've had notice periods the bulk of the "work" has usually been creating / extending / clarifying documentation, and attending knowledge-transfer sessions with colleagues. I have rarely if ever done any true "net new work" during those periods. Maybe if there was some task that was half-finished that I could finishing knocking out, I might finish that up. The rest of the time, which would generally be the bulk o…
> The rest of the time, which would generally be the bulk of it, was spent surfing the 'net, going to long lunches with my colleagues, or hanging out in the break-room swapping war stories, talking about out-of-work hobbies (mountain biking, etc.) and such-like.
That's what I did for my internship which was in office years ago now. Was nice for those last two weeks to unwind and take some walks with my fav coworkers. Everyone brought in some baked goods on the last day it was nice!
For my other jobs I had I got laid off for COVID, so no two weeks, and remote so unfortunately less of a thing now.
Maybe it's a relic of bygone era since everywhere seems to be at least hybrid now, and convincing everyone to come in for someone leaving probably won't happen.
Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haha I'm in the USA. Labor protections don't really exist but neither do obligations, I couldn't imagine giving 4 weeks+ notice unless it's around the holidays or something.
Early in my career I just did the standard '2 weeks' thing, but as I progressed I extended to 4 (and in one case I gave 6). In my mind, I thought it was respectful to the company, helped soften the blow on finding a replacement, gave loads of time to recruit/promote and transfer knowledge, etc. But after reflection, that was a mistake. 4-6 weeks is an eternity in product & engineering time. Too much time to sit aroun…
Yep I agree. For me I'm mid-level so it's not like I'm super specialized although my team is smaller than needed because labor market is hot.
Maybeeee if you're like high up two weeks might be too quick and you need an actual transition plan of some kind.
I'd rather take those extra weeks and put them into a real vacation to combat burnout.
Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
#55I usually switch from 'work' to 'dumping everything in my head that I haven't already documented in to a doc'. I've never really been sure if anyone ever reads the doc. I guess that means I stop working. EDIT: You're on day 4 with 6 more to go, so that means you're giving 10 days notice? My current contract says I need to give 3 months. Most roles prior to that have been 4 weeks. What sort of job has such a short not…
> 3 months That's ridiculous. What if you gave 3 months, and then 1 month in said, "Nah, F this, I'm out" and just bailed?
I'd be in breach of my contract, and (in theory) my employer could sue me. 3 month notice periods are very common for senior people in the UK so employers work with it. It also benefits the employer because it means they're less likely to have an unfilled role - if I resign they have 3 months to replace me. Less notice means they have a serious problem after I leave but before the next person starts.
3 months isn't even the longest I've known. I worked with some people a few years ago who were C-level execs in a manufacturing business who had to give 6 months notice.
Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 3 months That's ridiculous. What if you gave 3 months, and then 1 month in said, "Nah, F this, I'm out" and just bailed?
I'd be in breach of my contract, and (in theory) my employer could sue me. 3 month notice periods are very common for senior people in the UK so employers work with it. It also benefits the employer because it means they're less likely to have an unfilled role - if I resign they have 3 months to replace me. Less notice means they have a serious problem after I leave but before the next person starts. 3 months isn't e…
I could understand 3 month notice periods for senior managers, but what about low-level grunts like the engineers?
Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
#57I'd focus mostly on enriching the documentation and slow down on work towards other projects. Having though a document first approach for everything that touches production should leave one with very few work to do during notice period and would mostly mean clarifying to the others what is already documented.
Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. When I left my last job (team lead), I did the best I could to leave my team in a good position for the future. Got my code into a working state, documented everything I could, including stuff I hadn't touched in months. Made sure I left a time-critical project in a good enough state that they could demo to the client. Even after all that, I still got a panicky call a couple weeks ago about a project that…
Did you answer it with a freebie or with the billing clock running ?
This was a freebie since I was sympathetic: supply chain issues hit them really hard.
The employer before that, it was $200/hour and they were happy to pay it.
Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
#59I usually work harder during that period than any time before, sprinting to finish every project I started while documenting everything and training my peers. At one job I pulled an all-nighter on my second to last day finishing up a project. This industry is small and I want to leave a good last impression.
The relationships always last longer than the job, so this is alaways good advice. Plus, it's fixed term so I'd argue it IS a sprint, not a marathon at this stage.
Good advice to focus on documentation and wrapping; don't start anything new.
Re: Ask HN: How much work do you do during your notice period?
#60You want to transition as much as possible as quickly as possible. It usually depends on the manager if this is successful or not. But you should be ramping down quickly and go into Q&A mode in final rundown.