Notice Period - Why It Becomes Complicated Sometimes?

One of the basic purposes of notice period is to allow the employer some time to get another resource by the time the employee would leave the organization so that work remains unaffected.

​Notice period varies from organization to organization but it generally varies from 15 days to 90 days.

​Another reason is – If the employer wants to get rid of the employee for any reason, he/she should let the employee serve at least the notice period or pay the equivalent amount.

Why/How Notice Period Becomes Complicated?

The terms are very simple yet the situation becomes complicated at times. How?

• The employer (say “X”) suddenly has a vacancy when the employee quits.
• Half hearted efforts would be made to retain the employee who wouldn’t stop. And why would he/she? He/she resigned for a reason and rarely is the true reason revealed to the employer.  
• The employer X starts issuing notifications regarding the vacancy (job opening) on several job portals and also internally
• Several people from different organizations apply for the job
• “X” would prefer skillful, talented, ambitious and hardworking candidate in a limited budget
•  Since budget is a constraint, sometimes it takes more than a year to find the suitable candidate. Sometimes budget is not the constraint but experience or other things are.
• After long search, the employer “X” would finally get a candidate and want him/her to join instantly.
• That candidate (who is an employee of say “Y” employer) would require serving notice period for “Y” as per joining terms and conditions.
• Some employers (in the assumed “X” category) would ask the employee to just quit and tell that they would reimburse the amount that the employee might be losing in case he/she did not serve the notice period
• It would depend on “Y” to agree or not. Due to this, “Y” would have to become “X” i.e. “Y” would have to start searching for someone now and the cycle would continue.

​When the employer “Y” doesn’t agree (and it is justified to some extent), the complication begins and it all depends on how desperate the employee is to quit the organization. There could be various reasons such as employees not happy with the managers, fed up or irritated of company policies, not allowed to avail leaves, excessive work pressure, unnecessarily long working hours, irritating colleagues etc.  ​

​Actual Reason for Resignation is Seldom Revealed

There are many employees who are not frank enough to let their managers know why they actually quit but they are actually frustrated somewhere inside. These days several employers conduct exit interviews but that is more like a formality.

​Consider the case of Prachand who had put down his papers because his manager did not know “how to say no” to the client.

As a result of which the workload was always high and due to this he would often work for 12 hours a day. At the time of appraisal the manager would explain to him the “Bell Curve”! All work and no appreciation made Prachand a frustrated employee. But he did not disclose his hard feelings to the manager. Instead he started looking for another job and soon he got one.

Prachand maintained good relations with the manager despite all the work pressure. Not all people are like him and not all the managers are alike too. Instead of finding the reason for resignation, for some it becomes an ego battle. The purpose is to anyhow make the employee stay for the entire notice period. 
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Some managers are stiff enough to go on to say, “I will ensure you do not get relieved before serving the entire notice period”, and the employee who can’t do anything; either exchanges some heated arguments with the manager or just accepts defeat.

There are some employees who would go on and find some consultant to identify the legal procedures to get rid of that employer without serving the entire notice period but such cases are rare.

Then there are some cases where the work actually depends on the employee i.e. employee is crucial for continuity of operations. There are employees (not the frustrated ones) who understand the responsibility and serve the entire notice period. I know some managers who were kind enough to have waived off the notice period and let the employee go.

When the Notice Period is Just a Formality!

At some organizations notice period is often a backup plan i.e. he/she is made to sit just to serve in case of urgency. The employee almost stops getting work. Important emails are not shared with him/her anymore as a result of which He/she starts coming late and leaving on time (sometimes before time also).

​At some employers entry and exit times are strictly observed. Such employees might not compromise with the working hours but would have the option to gossip during the official hours or use Internet to go through some news, shopping sites, movie sites etc. Alternatively, they will have their mobile phone to play games or listen to some music.

This all happens because the employer believes employee should serve the notice period but at the same time the employer is afraid that he/she should be refrained from knowing the important communications anymore.  Important work is not assigned to him/her anymore. Also, there is no confidence that the employee will produce quality work anymore.

Why then not allow the employee to relieve when he wants to? What is the use of such Notice Period?

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