How to resign without serving notice period

JohnAlex101

Hello everyone - I would like to resign from my current job without serving the notice period as I am being bullied.

What is the best way to do this, so that the company does not give a bad reference to future employers?

I was thinking of going to HR, handing them a simple notice - but verbally giving them my reasons, and requesting that I be allowed to leave without serving my notice period.

Any thoughts and advice welcome :j

Comms69

JohnAlex101 wrote: »

Hello everyone - I would like to resign from my current job without serving the notice period as I am being bullied.

What is the best way to do this, so that the company does not give a bad reference to future employers?

I was thinking of going to HR, handing them a simple notice - but verbally giving them my reasons, and requesting that I be allowed to leave without serving my notice period.

Any thoughts and advice welcome :j

You can ask, but they can say no.


If you are being bullied you should raise a grievance.


If you refuse to work your notice, your reference can say this.

jacksouth

I'm certainly not an expert, but as the previous poster said, if you ask HR politely and hand in your notice, you also need to have a plan for what you're going to do if they just say no. Are you in a union? They might be able to help you out. If not, then yes you should probably go down the route of raising a grievance and escalating your concerns about being bullied to something official and in writing.

Brynsam

Do you have a job to go to?

TELLIT01

If you don't have a job to go to you should seriously consider raising the bullying with the HR department. If you simply resign from a job you may not be able to claim JSA / UC for some weeks or months.
If you do have a job to go to then still talk to HR and explain that rather than raise a grievance you would prefer to leave with immediate effect, and not work notice. HR will probably be very happy in that situation to get you out of the company.

jonnygee2

Most references will ask about your reason for leaving. They will also ask how you work in a team, and how you handle conflict.

You can't expect your employer to be untruthful about this. It's likely you leaving on the spot will put your teammates in a tricky situation and that, if HR know nothing about this situation until now, they will also believe you haven't taken enough steps to resolve the situation. All of this will likely come across somewhere in your reference.

If coming into work is too stressful, or makes you anxious or upset, you might want to think about taking sick leave first. Speak to your GP too, and let HR know the real reason for the situation. I think they will want a chance to resolve the situation first, but if they are unable to they may well agree to terminate your contract by mutual agreement

Masomnia

The above advice is good. Alternatively you could try and claim that you were constructively dismissed by your employer's conduct and thus entitled to leave without giving notice. But that could get messy very easily.

It might be better to say to your manager that it's not working, you'd like to resign and would they let you leave earlier than your notice period requires.

Alternatively spend every waking moment not in work applying for jobs, that on it's own might make you feel better about things.

Resigning in breach of contract shouldn't be done lightly and I wouldn't recommend.

steampowered

If you just leave without working your notice, I think you would expect a bad reference. Plus you would be in breach of contract.

If you hand in your notice then immediately go on sick leave due to stress, it is perhaps less clear that you are in breach of contract, but you'd still expect a pretty poor reference.

You can certainly ask HR that you'd like not to work your notice period and explain why. But they may say no. Or, more likely, they will ask your manager.

[Deleted User]

Speak to them, level headed.

My reference experience recently with a big company:
"Keep Calm joined xxxxx on xx/xx/18 and left the company on xx/xx/18. Her job title on leaving was xxxxxx. Keep Calm left the company due to resignation.

We have no reason to doubt Keep Calm's honesty or integrity and wish her every success in future career.

Please note that xxxxx is only able to supply this standard reference, as per company policy."
Like I say my experience of a rather large company, not the supposed reference I think I may have gotten. More was asked in terms of attendance record but simply went directly unanswered.

Very humbled today to start with a group of people always only ever literally been paid the minimum wage, (couldn't meet a bunch of happier people, is minimum wage their secret, there's no pent up about them, no aggression, no rage, no need to bully or belittle anyone else) amongst them was a person with 2 years service in previous job who got some holiday pre booked before getting a job offer and who's boss let them go as they had holiday coming up when they went to give their week's notice and didn't wish to stand in their way of either. If I thought bosses got nastier given the more service involved, I was wrong. Some can be reasonable. All depends on the way of asking.

Happy ending always do-able.

ReadingTim

Ask nicely. But remember that if you don't work your notice period, you won't be paid your notice period either. So, stop work today, stop being paid today.

Apologies if that's obvious, but it's always worth keeping that in mind, given the next payday could be anywhere from 3-8 weeks away, even if you have a new job lined up right away - can you stay afloat until then?

JohnAlex101

Yes - I've got my next job lined up - but my notice period is 3 months...