Quitting my job

49 Posts

Hi
Please can someone explain to me the ramifications of quitting my financial services job (and not working my notice), as opposed to working the contractual notice period?
And is there any change to the answer if I have been signed off work due to stress?
Many thanks for any advice given.
Please can someone explain to me the ramifications of quitting my financial services job (and not working my notice), as opposed to working the contractual notice period?
And is there any change to the answer if I have been signed off work due to stress?
Many thanks for any advice given.
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Otherwise, if you fail to work your notice (or at least offer to work your notice) you are in breach of contract. If the employer suffers a loss as a result (e.g higher cost of hiring short term cover and / or loss of business) they can sue you for their losses. This doesn't happen all that often but it certainly does occasionally.
If you work in a regulated field your employer could complain to the regulator and they could put that you failed to honour your contract in any reference.
I left a role and managed to negotiate my notice period down from 4 months to 2 (subject to me completing specific projects before leaving) but a colleague at the same place just stopped going in with around 6 weeks of her notice still outstanding as she was finding it very stressful - they started legal action against her. She ended up paying them the 'costs' that they demanded to avoid going to court as it was hugely stressful for someone in her early 20s leaving her first 'proper' job and the threat of a legal case was very detrimental to her mental health. As other people had left before finishing their notice at that place and not had any consequences, we assumed that they wanted to make a point to dissuade others from trying it in the future and targeted someone they correctly assumed wouldn't fight them on it.
Moral of the story IMO - is to try and negotiate a shorter notice if possible. If you are signed off with stress by your doctor for the entire notice period then that's absolutely fine - they can't force you to work your notice if you're ill.
Being signed off due to stress doesn't change that answer, but if that's the case, talking to your employer about an earlier release date by agreement might well resolve the matter entirely amicably.
Particularly in careers like Financial Services, where trust is key to a strong career, this could be quite damaging if you can't honour an employment contract.