Dismissal and then long garden leave.

bel222

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getmore4less

Its gives them a chance to get another job while still being able to say employed.

Be nice and ask if they will give a decent reference and get the CV out there looking.

probably a pretty bad mismatch if friend was not able to turn it around during  disciplinary period what ever it is that they have been up to to cause a breakdown in trust.

Is this an employability issue that could crop up elsewhere, they may need help

bel222

Deleted...........

getmore4less

IME niche industry there are no secrets word gets round.

Focus on getting another job would be my goal, discuss references and leaving early if they find another job.

Breakdown of trust is potentially more serious than just did not fit so employer may not be keen but they want rid so might be supportive they have given a few weeks so might give that extra  

There will be more to think about and how they deal with this and frame it for the next one

Why did they take this job, voluntary move or some other like redundancy or sacked before. 
Why has it not worked
Has anything changed that it was working but not any more.

Resigning needs a backup story.
People just don't resign without reason and in the absence of anything plausible the default is resigned before they got fired.
niche sector a good chance word could get out anyway.

Time to get networking.

getmore4less

If friend  knew they did not fit why have they let it get this far?

When you know you don't fit you fix your behaviour as best you can to align with what is wanted.
Stay  if you can  or move on again if you can't or don't want to 

yksi

It is industry standard not to contact a current employer for a reference until after a job offer has been made and accepted. (Granted, some stupid employers do break this, but they can express to the interviewer that they do not wish them to contact the previous employer before an offer of employment is made, which should filter out 99% of the idiots and is a perfectly reasonable request.) So there is nothing to stop your friend job-hunting now - although if the new employer does contact the current employer at that point, it might fall down. But believe it or not a lot of employers somehow forget to check references, so the friend might get lucky. And it is at the point of an offer being confirmed that the friend can put in their appropriate notice time.

TELLIT01

The employer seems to be acting very fairly.  They are giving an extended notice period when the person could have been sacked on the spot.  If they are in a position where obtaining a new job is unlikely to be an issue they just need to look forward.

getmore4less

Many  job offers come with conditions like subject to references, might also have DBS checks as a condition.

The general advice is never resign before an offer is unconditional.

Not that relevant here as they are going anyway.

elsien

I'd take the gardening leave rather than resign - two months extra money. I would read that that they're not been dismissed for gross misconduct although they could have been.  Even if they resign, any reference could still mention resigned pending dismissal for breakdown of trust. Which is factually accurate so resignation isn't necessarily going to make that go away. 
Your friend needs to check with the employer what sort of reference they are likely to give. Depending on the circumstances, if the employer is willing to give a neutral reference that's the best outcome they can hope for. 

TBagpuss

Yes, they seem to be saying that tin their view, they would have had grounds to, and been justified in, dismissing your friend summarily for gross misconduct but have instead decided to dismiss them on notice, putting them on gardening leave for the notice period.

From you friend's perspective, this means they get paid up to the end of April so have 2 1/2 months to job hunt and plan, and if any references are provided in future they won't say they were summarily dismissed. 

If your friend choses to resign (for instance, if they find a new job and want to start at once) then they will probably be able to negotiate to shorten the notice period to let them do that, but other than that there's not a lot of point in their resigning, it just means that (if their notice period is shorter than the time left to the end of April) that they get paid less, and in any reference the employer would still be able to say that they were dismissed or that the resigned while serving their notice period, so they won't gain anything. 

My guess d that the employer has decided that paying them for a couple of months gardening leave is appropriate - it's probably a mix of them being generous and them being aware that there's a bigger risk of someone appealing / going to tribunal if they are summarily dismissed, as as that involves a lot of hassle and expense for the employer even where they have a good case and would win, they have made a pragmatic decision that it is more cost effective to pay them a couple of months pay 

Sandtree

getmore4less said:

Many  job offers come with conditions like subject to references, might also have DBS checks as a condition.

The general advice is never resign before an offer is unconditional.

Not that relevant here as they are going anyway.

And here lies a problem because others are advising them to state a reference from the current employer cannot be sort until employment is ended and an offer cannot be made unconditional until a reference is received. Less of a problem in this case because there is an end date whether the OP likes it or not but ordinarily the two bits of advice dont work together.

The other issue is if you have a very long notice period, most employers will wait a month for professionals, many will understand 3 month notice periods are common but a former colleague had a 12 month notice period... there was little prospects of potential employers making an unconditional offer 12 months before the start date... a lot could happen with debt, criminal records etc in that timescale. 

As to the OP's letter, it makes little sense and to be honest looks like a template letter with options where they have forgotten to remove a section... dismissed immediately without notice but on a distant future date. What was the notice period? Had they served notice on the date of the letter when would have the last working day been? Before or after the stated date?