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united-states resignation human-resources bonus

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November 28, 2025 Score: 8 Rep: 140,061 Quality: Expert Completeness: 30%

The bonus program and process for resignation departure should be in your employee handbook and/or HR website. It may be hidden, but it's worth digging. The bonus program document often contains words like "voluntary", "discretionary", "adjustable" etc. meaning the company can pay it but they are not legally required to do so and the payment is often contingent on a variety of requirements and conditions. And yes: A frequent requirement is that at time of payout you still need to be an employee of the company.

, I don't know if it's advisable to even hint that you might be not with the company come January

It most case it's not. I would play this carefully

Any advice on how to get this information on the exact policy details without showing my cards?

Tricky. Best shot would be to ask someone who did the same thing a year ago (i.e. left between end of year and bonus payout). Asking HR specifically about the rules for departing employees, will tip them off and if you don't ask specifically, they won't tell you.

If the bonus is important to you, your safest path of action is to don't resign until you have the money in hand. In fact, the day after bonus payout is a popular resignation day. In pretty much any bonus program that I have seen, the bonus can be withheld or adjusted for pretty any reason or no reason at all.

November 28, 2025 Score: 7 Rep: 12,140 Quality: Medium Completeness: 10%

It is reasonable to ask how the bonus works.

Keep the question to HR short and simple. Something like:

I would like to understand the bonus policy and timing, would you provide some clarity. Thank you in advance for your help.

November 28, 2025 Score: 2 Rep: 1,751 Quality: Low Completeness: 20%

Unless you have an offer in hand right now and are negotiating start dates, would the information actually change your current plan?

If you’re still job hunting (or not even started yet) then it’s potentially going to be at least a couple of months before you get to the point of an offer and start dates become the critical aspect, in which case you might even have received your bonus and the question becomes moot.

If you do have an offer, tell the new company the situation, and see how they react to suggesting a start date after your bonus payment. I’ve had colleagues work 3 months notice with a job offer in hand, so it’s not impossible that they’d wait.

So I’d say ignore it for now, do some job hunting, and when they ask for a start date you can get all the details from your current HR team.