Giving Four Months’ Notice or Paying to Quit Has These Workers Feeling Trapped

Last spring, a doctor for Concentra Inc., the leading US occupational health-care company, told his boss he wanted to quit. The workload of as many as 40 patients a day was too great, and the breaks were too short, he says. He’d gotten so used to inhaling his lunches in a couple minutes that he’d started racing through meals with his family, too. But Concentra wasn’t ready to let him go.

It told the doctor that it would enforce a contract clause requiring employees to give 120 days’ notice when quitting or pay a hefty fee, equivalent to his salary for the remainder of that four-month window. Management said, “We will make you pay” and “The contract will be enforced,” according to the doctor, who, like other former Concentra employees, requested anonymity because they fear retribution. So he stuck around for another four months—during which he had to turn down a couple of job offers from companies that weren’t willing to wait that long to hire him. “You definitely feel trapped,” he says.