notice period?

helen_vasey

if your contract states that you must give 1 months notice, can they do anything if you want to leave either immediately or say, in 2 weeks instead of 1 month? I presume all they can do is take off any holiday pay from your last wages, or could they sue you ?

msmicawber

Hi Helen,

Have a look at this web site: http://www.jobsite.co.uk/cgi-bin/bulletin_search.cgi?act=da&aid=2496.

Potentially, they have remedies like injunctions to stop you taking up your new job (!), but I doubt they'd want the expense even if they could get it organised in a couple of weeks. In practice, I doubt they'd do anything much other than not pay you for those two weeks.

Astaroth

They can sue you for the losses they can prove you have caused them due to your breach of contract.

What your job is and "how replacable" you are would dictate what the losses would be. So if you are a high volume role the likelihood would be the losses are paying people overtime rates to cover your shifts. If you are slightly more "unusual" in role then it may be they have to get a temp in - in either of these cases you would have to pay the difference in what your salary would have been for the period (which they would have had to pay if you stayed on) and what they had to pay (eg for overtime it is probably 1.5x salary so you could be sued for the 0.5x salary). Obviously if you are totally unique and getting a temp in isnt going to work then it would be loss of revenue/ savings and so most likely massively more expensive.

The reality of the situation is however that it is exceptionally rare that a company would bother suing you for the money as for anything in the small track (aka small claims court) level of court they cannot claim back costs. So for anything under £5,000 it is a question of is it going to cost them more in time and effort to get the money back than the amount of money being claimed - if they have a barrister/ solicitor involved then for anyone below middle management the answer is going to be almost certainly not

bookgirl_2

As people have said above, not much is usually done financially. However, it is open to the employer to provide a reference which includes the sentence "Miss Xyz ended her employment with us in breach of contract". If your new employer is happy with this or doesnt want a reference, then this probably wont bother you.

msmicawber

I wouldn't worry about references - I don't think anyone takes the risk of providing a written reference any more, and the verbal ones just confirm that you (a) exist and (b) used to work at the firm.