change of notice period

change of notice period

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The company I work for is trying to extend the notice period from one month to three months to some senior personnel. This is due to the fact senior personnel in this particular sector are hard to come by and hence difficult to replace promptly those who are leaving the company.
The employee will be asked to sign the said amendments as a way of accepting the new notice period.
I know he might look bad to the eyes of the employer but can the employee refuse signing on the ground that the notice period was one month when he or she joined the company?

Gianpiero Bentivoglio

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By Coopsy
04th Jul 2007 12:03

They can possibly sue you
I have had some recent experience of this with my fiancee. She was on a 3-month notice period, got a new job and only wanted to give a months notice. Other people in her position, and more senior, had left in the past with only a months notice and it had never been an issue.

Due to staffing levels/holidays, etc. they will be short-staffed when she leaves and so have threatened to sue her for the additional cost to them of having to pay temporary/agency staff for the remainder of her notice period as she is breaching her contract. A brief chat with a solicitor contact would indicate they can do this due to her breach of contract.

Whether they would actually go through with this, especially given she never sgned the contract and they never chased this up, is a different matter. We'll just have to take a chance!

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By NeilW
03rd Jul 2007 15:03

Yes.
Of course he can. If senior personnel are hard to come by, then by definition they have the negotiating upper hand. It should be them dictating terms, not the employer.

Not only that, but the employer would really struggle to enforce the notice clause anyway. They'd have to show what commercial interests it protects.

NeilW

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By neiltonks
03rd Jul 2007 15:26

Yes
As Neil W. says, the employee can refuse to sign - a change to an employment contract has to be agreed by both parties just like a change to any other contract.

The employer could, of course, make things like future salary increases conditional on signing the new contract (unless the existing contract specifies some sort of automatic increase each year, which is very unlikely!)

I do wonder why employers have long notice periods, though. What are they going to do if someone on a three-month notice period resigns and asks to be allowed to serve one month's notice rather than three?

If they refuse, they have a disgruntled person in a senior position for three months. Alternatively they could refuse but then put the person on 'gardening leave', in which case they've got to pay them to do nothing for three months. Neither seems to make much sense in terms of the business.

If someone has accepted another job, their emotional engagement with the current employer has ended and, especally with senior people, the sooner they leave the better.

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By gianpi
03rd Jul 2007 16:45

Thank you very much for your feedback!
Regards
Gianpiero

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By AnonymousUser
04th Jul 2007 07:18

Notice Periods
Longer notice periods are to the employee's advantage, not the employer's. If you don't like your job, and are itching to be elsewhere, you will do a cruddy job; from their point of view they're best rid of you ASAP. Keeping people around who aren't committed to the company vision poisons other workers commitment levels. Meanwhile, they're still contractually obligated to pay you for three months.

The main reason for a three month period is to thwart you from accepting an immediate job offer. It doesn't really work, though, because you can always just stop showing up for work anyway. What can they do, fire you?

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By gianpi
04th Jul 2007 09:53

Notice Period
Hello Liz,

Thank you for your contribution.

Here we are assuming employees may want to leave on a good term basis. So do they have to stick around for three months and keep smiling?
At the same time I have spoken to some headhunters who told me that it will not make any difference whether perspective candidates are on a month's notice or three. What would you think as a potential employer looking to recruit senior calibre people?

Regards

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By suzina
06th Jul 2007 15:33

Contract still valid!
Darren, be aware!

Employment Law is about the only time a contract can be valid without being signed (or even written down), although industrial tribunals usually find in favour of the employee. It tends to work on the 'but it's always been that way and nobody moaned at the time so that's now accepted practice' principle.
As an employer I would feel on very shaky ground with this one...
For more info I strongly recommend posting a question on HR Zone (sister to this site) where more knowledgable folk than I can advise you.

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