Do I have to work my notice?

thorsoak

It used to be that if a company let an employee go immediately, the employee would recieve a week/month's money in lieu of notice,dependant upon the contract. If an employee wished to leave immediately then the employer could ask for refund of week/month's money in lieu of contract. However I'm not sure if that ruling still applies.

Vader123

Strictly speaking your current employer can sue for losses incurred as the result of you not fulfilling your end of the bargain (ie contract). This could mean advertising for a temp and the pay this involves.

In the real world though the money involved in serving papers and taking advice for sueing you is often not cost effective so it does not tend to happen.

I would be more worried about your reference. You say you have had one and had a confirmed job offer. There is nothing wrong with your current employer re-issuing a reference with facts about you not leaving. For example

Further to the recent reference provided, I would like to correct the end date of employment as (OP) has decided not to serve their notice period and hence their contract. We have investigated taking legal action to minimise our losses but found this not cost effective.

All that is facts and not an opinion.

Worth thinking about, I have seen this happen.

Vader

SarEl

Vader123 wrote: »

Strictly speaking your current employer can sue for losses incurred as the result of you not fulfilling your end of the bargain (ie contract). This could mean advertising for a temp and the pay this involves.

In the real world though the money involved in serving papers and taking advice for sueing you is often not cost effective so it does not tend to happen.

I would be more worried about your reference. You say you have had one and had a confirmed job offer. There is nothing wrong with your current employer re-issuing a reference with facts about you not leaving. For example

Further to the recent reference provided, I would like to correct the end date of employment as (OP) has decided not to serve their notice period and hence their contract. We have investigated taking legal action to minimise our losses but found this not cost effective.

All that is facts and not an opinion.

Worth thinking about, I have seen this happen.

Vader

Or even, as I have seen happen

"Further to the recent reference provided, I would like to correct the end date of employment as (OP) has decided not to serve their notice period and hence their contract. We intend to bring legal action against the employee for breach of contract, and against yourselves for inducing our employee to breach their contract"

OK, this is really rare and it wasn't all bluff. They did sue the employee (and won). More to the point, the new employer decided not to take the risk and sacked the new employee. Yes, really really rare. But that never means that you won't be the one that it happens to.

A friend of mine ran around like a headless chicken because his tax disc reminder never arrived and he totally missed the fact that his disc had run out the day before (on a Sunday). I pointed out that there were entire streets in our place of residence where it appeared nobody even had one! His argument was that nobody ever seemed to notice those streets, but he was convinced that if he even drove to the post office to collect his, he would be pulled over by the police. Really unlikely - but I could see why he walked to the post office!

Lil306

Googlewhacker wrote: »

I'm not so sure this is true, if it got out then everyone would see that the employee broke their contract and are facing the consequences and the employer is just in taking action.

Yes, however it could just be seen as a petty attempt at tit-tat by the employer aswell. Unless they can physically prove they are having a loss of earnings from you leaving such as you being the only person who does financial stuff in the building (purchases, account sales, etc) then they don't stand on any ground to hold up a case. If there is someone else who is doing the same job as you then there is someone else who can provide coverage if needed.

I doubt most companies would sue unless they were real high fliers or those who were tit for tat, since I'd imagine it would be far quicker simply hiring a temp than actually going through court cases etc just for the case of someone leaving early.

What we have to remember, is the negative impression are always the ones remember the most. An employee may leave on negative grounds, however the company is giving a negative impression because they are doing petty things for people in breach of contract.

jonnyd281

Could the employer discipline you and sack you for non-attendance since you strictly speaking should be working for them for another month? Just a thought.

LittleVoice

thorsoak wrote: »

It used to be that if a company let an employee go immediately, the employee would recieve a week/month's money in lieu of notice,dependant upon the contract. If an employee wished to leave immediately then the employer could ask for refund of week/month's money in lieu of contract. However I'm not sure if that ruling still applies.

If an employer dismisses (lets go) an employee, they have to give whatever notice is required under the contract (after one month's employment that's a minimum of a week and increases to be one week for each completed year of service, up to a maximum of twelve weeks' notice.) If they want to terminate the contract without notice they would have to pay an amount equivalent to the basic remuneration for the notice period.

If an employee resigns and wishes to leave without working their notice, they need to negotiate with the employer - but the employer cannot just decide to withhold payment for any period that has already been worked. Also any holiday accrued but not taken would have to be paid.