Current employer has refused my advised leaving date in my notice

Gray134

Hello 

I have recently handed in my notice at a company that I have worked at for 4 years. my contract states notice period is to be "not less than one month".  My job role is to assist design engineers in construction to design heating systems with our products and am currently dealing with around £4 million of projects.  I have given the 2nd of January as my advised leaving date to allow them time to get a replacement, allow me to complete and update a detailed handover file and hopefully do the handover with my replacement, should also say that I was originally not leaving under a cloud and have been one of the top performers.  I heard third hand that the person in charge of the UK business wanted to get rid of me in a month to save two months salary and the bonus owed which would equate to just over £10k.  The company have now sent me an email saying my contract terms of not less than 1 month mean they only need a months notice so I will be leaving on the 31st of October  and only be paid to the 31st.  I am under the impression that as I have stated the date I wish to terminate my employment it is not down to my company to then change the date to an earlier date but would appreciate any advice or pointers on where to look within UK law.  I am hoping to resolve this without resorting to legal means but I am making notes ahead of this being the outcome and potentially this will happen as they have also breached the working times directive in the reply sent as they are requiring my owed holidays be used in my notice period but have not yet informed me of the dates i need to take

Undervalued

Gray134 said:

Hello 

I have recently handed in my notice at a company that I have worked at for 4 years. my contract states notice period is to be "not less than one month".  My job role is to assist design engineers in construction to design heating systems with our products and am currently dealing with around £4 million of projects.  I have given the 2nd of January as my advised leaving date to allow them time to get a replacement, allow me to complete and update a detailed handover file and hopefully do the handover with my replacement, should also say that I was originally not leaving under a cloud and have been one of the top performers.  I heard third hand that the person in charge of the UK business wanted to get rid of me in a month to save two months salary and the bonus owed which would equate to just over £10k.  The company have now sent me an email saying my contract terms of not less than 1 month mean they only need a months notice so I will be leaving on the 31st of October  and only be paid to the 31st.  I am under the impression that as I have stated the date I wish to terminate my employment it is not down to my company to then change the date to an earlier date but would appreciate any advice or pointers on where to look within UK law.  I am hoping to resolve this without resorting to legal means but I am making notes ahead of this being the outcome and potentially this will happen as they have also breached the working times directive in the reply sent as they are requiring my owed holidays be used in my notice period but have not yet informed me of the dates i need to take

That they are quite entitled to do. Normally you would be entitled to twice the number of days notice of the length of the holiday they instruct you to take. However, if your contract (staff handbook etc) states that you can be required to use up your holiday before leaving then you are deemed to have already been given notice to take the holiday.

Even if not, be careful about arguing this point as they could simply keep giving you two days notice to take a single day's holiday which presumably wouldn't be what you want!

getmore4less

They don't need to give you dates for the holiday 

They just need to give sufficient notice they need taking.

Not uncommon for a contract to have holidays must be used during notice

They can leave it upto you to pick dates they  can adjust if needed.
If they don't allow all of them under the rules then they would need to pay on termination.

How much holiday will you have accrued by end of month. It may not be possible to take them all within the rules.



Never a good idea to give more notice than needed plenty of cases on here where it has gone wrong.

You will need to treat this as a termination by the company and point out it may not be legal.
Probably start by saying as you don't accept my notice to terminate 2 Jan I am withdrawing it.

You could try the "this is the work that needs doing and a month is not long enough" the company might be happy for none of it to get done.

If you are one of others doing similar work you will be dispensable.

Also check the terms of bonus scheme many have clauses that they don't get paid one in a notice period.

AnnieB2018

This is a very common ‘trick’…the employee is being nice by giving more notice than the contract requires and the employer counters it by serving a notice just as per the contract. Tough luck, everything is by the book. Btw, if the employer doesn’t want you and you don’t want them, why drag it out against the contractual terms!?

TELLIT01

AnnieB2018 said:

This is a very common ‘trick’…the employee is being nice by giving more notice than the contract requires and the employer counters it by serving a notice just as per the contract. Tough luck, everything is by the book. Btw, if the employer doesn’t want you and you don’t want them, why drag it out against the contractual terms!?

I suspect the extended notice period given by the OP is as much to do with entitlement to £10k bonus as anything else, although I may be doing them a dis-service. 

Too late for the OP, but giving more than the required notice is a subject which has been raised many times, and the answer is always only to give the required notice and nothing more.  That is very much to protect the employee from what is being done by the employer here.

Undervalued

TELLIT01 said:

AnnieB2018 said:

This is a very common ‘trick’…the employee is being nice by giving more notice than the contract requires and the employer counters it by serving a notice just as per the contract. Tough luck, everything is by the book. Btw, if the employer doesn’t want you and you don’t want them, why drag it out against the contractual terms!?

I suspect the extended notice period given by the OP is as much to do with entitlement to £10k bonus as anything else, although I may be doing them a dis-service. 

Too late for the OP, but giving more than the required notice is a subject which has been raised many times, and the answer is always only to give the required notice and nothing more.  That is very much to protect the employee from what is being done by the employer here.

There is very seldom an "entitlement" to a bonus as they are rarely contractual and normally "discretionary". Assuming the latter the law allows wide discretion providing it is not so wild as to be "perverse". I wouldn't give much for the chances of it being paid now.

Gray134

The only reason I am arguing this is as I have arranged to leave on the 2nd of January and start on the 3rd of jan at my new company to allow for a handover to a replacement.  The reference to the bonus is more that I know that the attempt to get rid of me earlier has been started by the commercial director who wants to save the money and i can understand that.  my major issue is in the wording of the contract that notice period should be "Not less than 4 weeks" which I have followed yet they are saying it actually means 4 weeks.  As the other company would be happy to have me earlier and I will be happy to go especially after the last few days I am really only fighting this as I am sick of him riding roughshod over me and my colleagues and getting away with it

theoretica

As I see it, you have given notice - with an advanced date.  This does not protect you from the company giving counter notice - but they need a reason for dismissing you.  Redundancy, gross misconduct...

oh_really

Gray134 said:

The only reason I am arguing this is as I have arranged to leave on the 2nd of January and start on the 3rd of jan at my new company to allow for a handover to a replacement. 

Not your problem, look at the unintended consequence. You should've tendered the requirement and left.

Jillanddy

Since the £10k bonus isn't an issue, then you could just let the new employer know that, lucky them, you can start earlier because your current employer has nicely agreed to let you go without all the faff of handover etc. 

You might actually want to check the terms of your bonus scheme because many have "small print" - a common small print term is that if you have handed in your notice, you don't qualify for the bonus. If that is the case, or if it is in any way discretionary, then you may have nothing at all to gain from staying around anyway. 

To be fair, if I was due a bonus, I would want it too, but I wouldn't have been daft enough to advertise my leaving before it had cleared my bank account. Given that you have done so, if you are happy to lose it (or have no choice about that now) then I would go earlier and start the new job. 

General_Grant

Jillanddy said:

Since the £10k bonus isn't an issue, then you could just let the new employer know that, lucky them, you can start earlier because your current employer has nicely agreed to let you go without all the faff of handover etc. 

You might actually want to check the terms of your bonus scheme because many have "small print" - a common small print term is that if you have handed in your notice, you don't qualify for the bonus. If that is the case, or if it is in any way discretionary, then you may have nothing at all to gain from staying around anyway. 

To be fair, if I was due a bonus, I would want it too, but I wouldn't have been daft enough to advertise my leaving before it had cleared my bank account. Given that you have done so, if you are happy to lose it (or have no choice about that now) then I would go earlier and start the new job. 

I don't have much experience of bonus schemes but have not worried about waiting around before handing in my notice because by the time my notice would expire I would already have worked long enough to be half way to the next bonus payment.  So one would always be missing out to a greater or lesser extent.