[tilt]

Pardon my ignorance - is this a law (meaning part of labour law) or is this merely a policy chosen to be used by an employer?

Cheers

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by tilt

Pardon my ignorance - is this a law (meaning part of labour law) or is this merely a policy chosen to be used by an employer?
Cheers

This isn't a law and supreme court has a ruling for this. In my previous organization there was a notice period of 90 days, which could be reduced with leaves, pay back or working. But the worse was with the bonds, when employee had huge bonds (in some extreme cases upto a Cr, where the company sponsored the employee for an ovseseas course at an elite college) to repay back or complete some duration years, the employee would just vanish after resigning and all company could do is send some summons, which stood nowhere in front of the law, even the signed contract job agreement didn't stood anywhere.

In the matter of Sanjay Jain vs. National Aviation Co. of India Ltd., the Supreme Court held that it is the employee’s right to resign when they want, and they cannot be forced to serve at the organization if they are not willing to do so.

[tilt]

Thank you Nomad. Based on the precedent you quoted, how is it even legal for an employer to stipulate notice periods? At best this could be a point of negotiation in the contract and nothing more; no?

i mean, the employer can have whatever they want in their "policy", but all said and done it is a "policy" that someone somewhere t some time thought was a good idea.

Cheers

[am1m]

Originally Posted by NomadSK

But the worse was with the bond, when employee had huge bonds...and all company could do is send some summons, which stood nowhere in front of the law.

Oh, this is interesting. I've heard this about employee bonds, that they are unlikely to stand up in court, but I've been reading conflicting reports about notice period though. Some people say they are not legally enforceable, some say they are. Would be good to get someone with a labour law background to comment.

Personally, I'm against either an enforced notice period or a bond- I would never join an organization that has anything more than a 30-day notice period or needs me to sign any sort of "bond". But I am also of the opinion that if one has voluntarily signed an employment contract with those terms, one should be bound by those.

Would be good to get some legal clarification by members who are legally qualified or have some HR experience about the legality of such things. (Thanks in advance!)

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by tilt

i mean, the employer can have whatever they want in their "policy", but all said and done it is a "policy" that someone somewhere t some time thought was a good idea.

Yes, that's true, we as a gullible employee don't think much about the notice period and if it's in the contract we just serve it, without giving an iota of thoughts. And I believe in not burning the bridges, you never know when you want them back But in the court of law such policy/agreement doesn't hold good.

Originally Posted by am1m

Would be good to get some legal clarification by members who are legally qualified or have some HR experience about the legality of such things. (Thanks in advance!)

There are many SC's rulings on this subject, such bonds/notice period/holding money, doesn't stand in front of law. The only issue with that is swimming against the tide.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by NomadSK

There are many SC's rulings on this subject, such bonds/notice period/holding money, doesn't stand in front of law. The only issue with that is swimming against the tide.

Did some reading and found several good summaries online. What I gather is it depends on how the court interprets a couple of terms. Notice periods and bonds can be legally enforceable, as long as the company can demonstrate that they have incurred an expense on behalf of the employee and as long as it is not 'unreasonable'. What the court might define as unreasonable is probably anyone's guess.

(Again, any comments, clarifications from members who are lawyers will be great.)

Also spoke with some HR folk I know (obviously, not at my present org! ) and they say that usually the courts will favour the employee if it really does come down to legal action.

But like you already pointed out, why burn bridges, unless what is at stake is that serious. And given the hassles of litigation, I guess companies can really get away with any policy they choose to enforce. Better to just not get into such a situation or company if one can help it.

And to be completely fair, at least in the IT industry, overall working conditions and policies are generally very good and employee-friendly (driven by competition for talent of course, not out of the goodness of management.)

[Loco-moto]

Having worked in consulting, startup and manufacturing, I have experienced multiple shades of the notice period.

1. Management Consulting : I was in-betweem engagements and the my practice asked to complete some tasks that no one in the team wanted to do. So, notice period does serve a purpose from a supervisor's perspective as they can get some grunt work done which does not require much quality. All in all, 45/90 days notice and zero recovery amount.

2. Startup [Logistics] : I was handling a senior operational role so things were dependent on me, but still 60/90 days as both the organisation and I wanted to be in touch later on. Here, the discretion of employee/employer and a mature situation handling approach helped everyone.. My reportees had churned multiple times and I exercised discretion and treated every case as special. People happily served 90 days, who were in commercial/critical roles. Some were relieved within 30 days as well.

3. Manufacturing [Consumer Goods] : On notice currently (60/90 days passed), and have made me serve full 90 days. The reason they give is, we can't create exception for you as that will set a precedent. The real reason is that HR BP is new and has zilch clue of what I do, so just wants his pound of flesh.

I believe, companies & people who exercise discretion create a relationship which transcends any employment contract and even after leaving one feels respected and helps happily.

Employee exit and hiring are important events in an individual's lives, companies and HR are yet to think humanely on their processes.

[TankJr]

The only way a 90-day notice period makes sense is to limit the options of the employee. The main reason this sucks is cause most IT companies are notorious for offering very low salary appraisals (3% which doesn't even beat inflation), for which they can cite any number of irrelevant performance metrics. It's worse with WITCH companies with a high turnover rate. Just look at the CTS layoff recordings during the 2013~2014 period where the HRs couldn't even give a straight answer why they were suddenly let go.

Jumping companies every 2~3 years (especially in India) is viewed as taboo for looking out for his own best interests, while the same companies will do a full team layoff the moment they don't make a profit (see Google's entire Python team being outsourced).

What we need are regulators who understand how this doesn't work in the favour of the working class, and get back to a 30-day period.

[IamNikhil]

I can comment only on the Media industry. Pre-covid, almost all major companies had a 30-day notice period uptil mid-level jobs. 60-90 days' notice period was usually mandated only for senior-level roles. However, recently got to know that the 90-day notice period has now become the norm across the hierarchy; and appallingly enough, I know someone at the VP level, who had to observe a notice period of 120 days. A bit too much frankly, as an employee on notice period is usually kept out of major projects and the whole thing just turns into a waiting game eventually.

[Rohitthebest]

90 days is too long from both sides.
I work in a consulting cum product firm based out of Pune, Bangalore and NJ USA.
In India we follow strict 60 days notice from Employee / Employer.
But if project dependence is not there on the employee, we let them go early too.
And I believe that is decent.

[DriverLess]

Anything more than 15 days is purely a bond and not a notice period. Nobody should need more than 15 days to handover work (at least in software). I mostly work for or with startups and they can't hire folks with 90 days notice period. When I'm interviewing for a job (self), that is the first question I ask. If they have anything more than 30days, I don't waste my time. Of course they can change that after you join the company, but stay far away from such companies.

In the current era, nobody stays with a company forever (2-3 years is eternity if you ask young folks). Companies should realize that build their processes and culture around celebrating folks who can be with the company even for a short duration and achieve great things. There are many managers and CEOs who take it personally when someone leaves and end-up working with HR folks to create such nonsense policies.

[Apex1815]

I work with a Japanese Manufacturer of Heavy Earthmoving Machinery.
<The organization is Second largest in its industry after Caterpillar.>

In our organization it is 30 Days notice period but most probably the employee is relieved within one week after resignation irrespective of his position or JD.

Also, in our industry the attrition rate is very low because there are only a few manufacturers of Earthmoving Machinery in the word, so dynamics are totally different than IT.

[Night Raven]

Me and my wife are medical professionals. My contract specifies one month notice but for her it is 3 months. For us the general experience is that relieving will happen much earlier and easier if the management finds a replacement. It is a real pain to work with an employee who has resigned but is staying due to this notice period. Few years back I had a female colleague who had resigned due to personal reasons but the management couldn’t get another person to join immediately. This lady was half heartedly working, restricting OPD appointments, refusing to attend night calls from emergency room and not even answering phone calls. I had to take on call duties continuously for over two weeks because of her. Nightmarish experience it was.

[Mik]

As an employer (small IT consulting firm) we have a 60 day notice period though we do relieve most people within 45 days unless its really important.
We cannot operate large benches hence after every resignation, it takes around 45 days at minimum to get a replacement (This requires people in notice periods, on career breaks or with 30 day notices). Post this, we have to get at least a week or two of shadowing to get the new guy up to speed.

Any person with a 90 day notice period is overlooked due to 2 reasons
1. We need a replacement to come in when the exiting employee is still around.
2. The ones with 90 day notices use those 90 days to hunt other jobs and there is a miniscule chance they will land up in our company

The system is fundamentally flawed. We simply comply and keep afloat.

[ghtg1]

I believe this forum lacks diversity and mostly people are expressing views in terms of IT giants as employer in reference to 90 days notice period. The world is much bigger than IT sector. In my view employee most of the time resigns once he has found another opportunity and the clock starts ticking for the employer once he/she puts their paper. They need to find a right replacement with right skill set, right budget, if it's work from office then right location, right educational qualification if the role requires etc. An employee might take many months to find best opportunity for himself before putting papers but an employer gets 15-90 days to do all that and still people has a problem with it which I see as to unfair. They might have inherent hate that large corporates don't have a soul so any harm to them for personal interest is fine but think about smaller firms and alike. Many a times an employer invests into an employee to have him achieve a specific skill set and if that employee resigns with minimum notice it is almost impossible for them to find a replacement during the notice period. The entire momentum is shifted in employees favor during this discussion with zero to minimum consideration given to challenges faced by employer. Imagine how many people would have jumped ships for byjus and left their ex-employers high and dry, once tide turns they realized the value of their previous employer. Unless there is something on table for employer (the risk taker) it would never be in interest of employee to act arbitrarily.