In the US you typically give 2 weeks notice you are quitting. Some places will escort you out that day and give you 2 weeks pay but that is not common.
Someone told me in India it’s 3 months which is pretty strange. Is that true? Do other countries have a long period where you work after you give notice?
It’s the “Second Annual Bijou Drains Notice Requirements in Foreign Lands” thread!
I thought that we had discussed it recently!
For Germany, for resignation by the employee, it’s by default (i.e., unless the contract stipulates a shorter deadline) four weeks, but the end of the employment must fall on a 15th or last day of a month. So it can be up to almost a month and a half, if you quit a couple of days into the month and it’s less than four weeks until the end of the month.
Where the employer fires the employee, deadlines are significantly longer, based on how long the employment has lasted. Can go up to seven months.
In the UK, it can be as little as a week, but contracts of employment frequently stipulate a month or more. My daughter who is a junior manager in a financial services company is required to give three months.
An employee who is moving on is unlikely to do anything bad as that can cause problems in the future.
Of course, the situation is totally different if you are being fired or made redundant.
UK. Employment law stipulates one week’s notice if you have been employed for a month or more (whether resigning or being asked to leave). As bob_2 notes, it is frequently longer - most employment contracts will state 4 weeks or one month. Many more senior positions have longer notice periods stipulated in their contracts - I must give 3 months notice. For board level positions, it might be 6 months. This is because the more senior the position, the more disruptive it is to the business, and harder to recruit a replacement.
If the company doesn’t want you hanging around for the notice period, eg if you’re going to a competitor, they can put you on gardening leave. Basically, you’ll still get paid, but will have 3 months off.
Sometimes, of course, you can negotiate to get out of your notice period sooner.
sorry my old fogey mind forgot about the previous thread 
I’d forgotten about it too, and I said pretty much the same last time!
I notice someone questioned how employers would be prepared to wait 3 months for someone to start and no one replied. It’s simply the way things are done, so when I’m recruiting for a senior position, I do it on the understanding that I’ll have to wait 3 months for the right candidate. No employer would be horrified by such an idea, because it’s the default.
Of course it wouldn’t be the same for a lower grade position. I do think it’s pretty harsh of bob_2’s daughter to have to serve 3 months notice in a junior position, but perhaps that’s standard in her industry.
In India it’s pretty standard. For our office in Bangalore we have a long lead time before we can onboard anyone because of their 3 month notice with their previous job. There’s actually an incentive to hire people who are currently unemployed.
I quit my job (IT management) last year - I had to provide 3 months notice. Actually, during the first 5 years of that employment, my contract had erroneously stated 1 month and they eventually noticed this and changed it.
I had been exploring other opportunities for a while, and I noticed that after the change to 3 months, it was much harder to get selected for interview - notice period in current role is one of the first things recruiters ask.
3 month notice periods are used to ‘help retain key staff’ (by making it difficult for them to leave). I personally think its a very poor and rather shortsighted strategy that is ultimately self-defeating. If you want key staff to stay, and you want the best out of them, reward them, develop them, offer them challenges and accept that nothing lasts for ever (so plan for succession).
Trying to lock them in only encourages people to find the minimum they can deliver whilst staying on the payroll.
Hey, I’ve done it too, as the gentle ribbing in this thread illustrates:
I think it very much depends on your industry. If you’re on 3 months, when it isn’t the standard and you’re up against candidates on 1 month notice, then I agree it’s a distinct disadvantage. But in my industry it’s normal - I assume any one who’s a senior designer or above will be on 3 months notice. If they’re on less, it’s a nice bonus, but doesn’t affect my recruiting decisions, as I’m prepared to wait for the best candidate. Makes better sense in the long-term.
In all my years working in Canada, AFAIK you can walk any time. Good taste and a desire for a decent referral might impel someone to give 2 weeks or better. Most people who are leaving for reasons not having to do with employee morale or personality conflict (i.e. retirement or moving to a new city) often give a decent amount of notice or make employer aware of their long-term plans. I remember one young fellow way back when, who noted an ad for jobs in Saudi Arabia and applied. He foolishly told his boss about it, so during the year it took to do paperwork and process things (nothing moves quickly in that milieu) he found he was not offered new opportunities since he might leave any time.
As far as I know, unless it’s spelled out in an actual contract, there are no penalties for just walking off the job - they have to pay you for work up until you left. Maybe times have changed, but I don’t recall anyone in lower level staff regular employees (as opposed to term positions) with employment contracts. Indeed, There was a discussion about a contractor’s non-compete clause when our company hired one of its contractors to be a regular employee. Basically, the discussion was - “your contract was with him, not with our company. So you can sue him. Good luck in Canada getting a judge to say the person cannot work at the only employer in town who can use their expertise.”
Now letting employees go “without cause” - unlike in the USA, that’s a lot more complex a discussion in Canada with decades of case law that a real lawyer can better elaborate on. Basic labour standards say 2 to 5 weeks, but with more specialized jobs and longer employment terms and other factors such as how dismissal was handled, the amounts at one time were up to 24 months. For professionals, the rule of thumb used to be “a month for every year of service”, but recent court decisions I understand have lessened that. I remember the head of our department once describing his conversation with an HR lawyer, and the guy basically said - “we try to offer as little as possible, but not so little that it is worthwhile to sue for more.”
This is closed. Please take more care when posting. Any further comments should be made to the IMHO thread.