I recently went from being a peon to department manager. After 6 months of working, I'm being asked to sign an employment agreement that requires that I provided notice 60 days before I leave. Is that normal?

For perspective, I'm department head of the smallest department in the company and only have 4 people working for me. We are a support department rather than the primary business line. A lot of my work was being outsourced before and could probably be outsourced again.

I have no intentions of leaving, but that just caught me off guard. That sounds like something more appropriate for the executives and the real decision makers. Can I go around calling myself an Executive now?

is the company going to return the same 60 day notice to you?

Highly doubtful

Are they offering you any incentive to sign it at all? Like guaranteed 60 day severance if let go?

If not then this is very fishy. I would not sign something that has no benefit to me at all.

hows your pay structured? do you have lots of bonuses, or stock awards? just wondering how they hold you accountable here

No incentive to sign, pay is salary, but I am eligible for bonuses. Since it's only been 6 months, I don't know what a typical bonus looks like yet.

As described, it's meaningless.

If it says "and failure to provide 60 days will result in clawing back bonus" then it has teeth.

Thanks. I assume they wouldn't be interested in having an unmotivated employee for 2 months, and I assume it wouldn't be worth it for them to try to file a lawsuit.

Not normal.

I would not sign and would begin looking for a new place of employment.

that seems like an overreaction

I would ask for the same courtesy. 60 day severance would seem fair. But like someone said above, based on what you've described, doubt they would do anything

This is always a response to these types of situations.

Doubt they would do anything other than not hire you in the future.

Ask them to remove it. See their reaction. They likely will.

Diggity said:

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that seems like an overreaction

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Remember, texags is the same message board where several people said they would put their dog down if it growled at their wife or kids.

This could be common in exec ranks and they are bringing down through mgmt.

Maybe the company is not an at-will state, or in a state where PTO/Accrued time off could be impacted by notice/contract.

Maybe cost of turnover is high and they are simply adopting this into hiring practices to find those that lean a tick more loyal, and thus are syncing up with current EEs.

Is the work contractual rather than pure EE?

As others have said, is there implied/offered 60 day+ severance if terminated without cause?

Would you want colleagues at this company to give a bit of notice more than 2 weeks? If so, not outlandish to be willing to do the same.

Ok, lots of experience in these matters. I'm a C-level exec.

This is not normal in general and certainly not without reciprocity, especially for a department manager type of position. I don't disagree with the guy telling you to find a new job, but what I recommend is:

Question: did you know up front before taking the job that you'd have to sign an agreement? If not, I think you should tell them that in a nice way. Normally employment agreements include non-competes. I'm not a lawyer, but from my experience, for a non compete to be enforceable in Texas they have to a) provide consideration aka money or special training that you wouldn't ordinarily get, b) be reasonable in scope and duration such as 1 year and your industry / region and c) protect a legitimate business interest. An employer typically has to prove all three to prevail over you, and it's probably not worth their time for a department manager. Someone springing an agreement on you after you've already started and done the role is bull shirt. You sure you can still trust them?

1) Understand what it means if you violate those 60 days. That will dictate how everything else gets played. If it's something like clawing back a bonus (depending on how much), you will need to pay attention to it. If it's something like not paying you your last pay check or not getting paid out on PTO when you leave, then I would just ignore it and chalk it up to cost of quitting.

2) I would certainly ask for a severance clause to be included and I would specify at least 60 days pay + pro-rated or full annual bonus + unused PTO + 4-6 months of health insurance. If they won't do that, I would tell them the language needs to be struck because it's one-sided and caught you by surprise. I would also list reasons in which you can get out of that 60 days. It could be supervisor change, change in job duties, asking you to relocate, etc. or other agreed upon circumstances.

3) you really should hire an employment lawyer for advice. I have one that I use for everything. It's not cheap, but its essential you know what you're signing. They'll provide guidance on arbitration, what jurisdiction the agreement is managed in, etc.

Will they terminate you if you don't sign it?

What is the specific penalty for failing to give such notice?

I had a claw back for a sign on bonus if I left before 12 months. I left before 6 months and I asked HR on my exit interview about it and she said "We never enforce the claw back."

It was a relatively small sum and I also performed at a very high level over the short time I was there, so I'm not surprised they didn't enforce it. Left on a good note and my manager invited me back if my next gig didn't work out.

bmks270 said:

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I had a claw back for a sign on bonus if I left before 12 months. I left before 6 months and I asked HR on my exit interview about it and she said "We never enforce the claw back."

It was a relatively small sum and I also performed at a very high level over the short time I was there, so I'm not surprised they didn't enforce it. Left on a good note and my manager invited me back if my next gig didn't work out.

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You got lucky because every single company Ive worked for would enforce the claw back money. Sometimes that money can be to the tune of $50k-100k.

As noted above, 60-90 days isn't unheard of for top execs but otherwise I have never seen this put on regular staff/management during my years.

Just tell them you're going to work for a competitor and they'll let you go then and there if you ever decide to leave.

Screw the 60 days.

if there isn't any consideration for the arrangement (ie some kind of benefit that you already as of today don't have) then its meaningless and unenforceable against you anyway.