Pros & Cons Of Notice Period

Dear All,
I need your expert advice on notice period to be given by employee/ employer for the separation.
In my company presently we are following one month notice period or one month salary in lieu of notice by employee or by management for leaving the job. Of late we have realised that one month notice by manager & above is not sufficient for proper handing over or finding the suitable replacement. Hence, management has suggested to increase the notice period of managers & above to 3 months.
I would appreciate if you share your views on the pros and cons of 1 month and 3 months’ notice period and what is the general concept followed in the industries. Is there any legality involved in making such changes and that too effecting existing employees.
Thanks & looking forward to your earliest response.
Regards,

Hi
I am professional in Facilities Management with 35 years of experience to my mind if the person is responsible and sincere to his job he will surely do his best to deliver his best what he can do during the Notice period , also depends what important position he hold and how much of this contribution are of use and has to be handed over to the next employees.
To my Experience you will find very few people who r sincere but yes once the employee resigns his Honey moon time starts and with him he will along spoil other members of team so if he is not holding important portfolio he should be told to leave the place immediately instead of going around and spoiling the environment
Thanks

Dear Ayaan,

According to me, for Managers and above the notice period should be of 3 months. the profile handled by Managers are bit overloaded and tedious therefore the handing over also takes time. Also, getting a new Manager as a replacement of the old one takes time as the new Manager also have to serve their notice period in their organisation....

So the change in notice period for Managers and above from 1 month to 3 months is a good idea...Even in my organisation we have a notice period of 3 months for Managers and above....

But as my friend Naresh said that in case if the under performing employee resign then notice period can be waived off with the approval of the functional head and head HR...

As far as the changes of the notice period have to be made....you can make a draft of the letter circulating to all employee (individually) stating the change in their notice period. but before issuing the letter, i suggest you need to get it cleared through your legal department to avoid any complications in near future....

The following chart specifies the periods of statutory notice required.

Length of Employment Notice Required

Less than 3 months None

3 months but less than 1 year - 1 Month

1 year but less than 3 years - 2 Months

3 years but less than 4 years - 3 Months

4 years but less than 5 years - 4 Months

5 years but less than 6 years - 5 Months

6 years but less than 7 years - 6 Months

7 years but less than 8 years - 7 Months

8 years or more - 8 Months

However, in corporate sector, we follow the following:

1) Junior-Level Employee - Notice Period of 30 Days

2) Middle-Level Employee - Notice Period of 90 Days

3) Senior-Level Employee - Notice Period of 180 Days

4) Management- Level Employee - Notice Period of 365 Days

The purpose of notice period is to ensure that an employee get sufficient time to handover his tasks and job responsibilities and to ensure knowledge transfer to the designated person and also to ensure that the company finds your replacement. The company may or may not use the entire time of the allotted notice period and may relieve the person before the completion of notice period.

I hope this will help.

Thanks,

Dear Sir,
For Termination of service of any employee, the management fixes the notice period.
For workmen /Supervisor cadre. it will be mentioned in the Standing Orders (generally one month either side)
For Officers and Managers, it will vary from co. to co. It may be 3 months on either side.
Issue circular to all employees about the decision of the management.
D.Gurumurthy
HR/IR Consultant

I believe the handover of responsibilities should start long before the employee even submits his/her resignation. Utilizing cross-functional work sharing is very important and also helps with succession planning. In other words, if the position is a managerial one, HR should be thinking about the progression of their careers and building the bench strength requires that knowledge sharing takes place constantly. Ask yourself when this person was on holiday, who was able to fill their role in their absence? That person should be looked at for a possible back fill for the vacating position and then recruit for the position that is promoted employee vacates. It will be a less costly position, the transition will be smoother because it is managed in house and if knowledge sharing is already taking place, it will take much less time. And even better the newly promoted person will be able to train his own successor. Organic growth within an organization is the best kind as it is less costly, more engaging for the employee and motiviating which contributes to a higher morale. It is also very helpful to have the new manager participate in hireing his/her replacement as they are the expert in their role and the input is very valuable. Proactivity is so much better than reacting to a vacancy.

Also, since the transition will take less time, you can go ahead and let your exiting employee leave with his gratuity paid out so he can secure employment elsewhere if necessary or start his new role. Certainly not in many cases, but there can be ill-feelings on the part of the exiting employee so this will avoid any costly or intentional errors on behalf of the departing employee.

Hi,

This is a very ticklish issue. Every company has its own conventions and policies which generally comes out of local needs. There are different schools of thoughts on this issue, but basically the necessity of notice period is to take care of KT from the person to be relieved. I know of companies which have excellent knowledge management systems and processes and relieve people at their will, making the person going out leave happily. General rule that you should follow should be based out of the required knowledge transition. A person in notice period is generally a "why-should-I-care" person who may damage the system more by attitude. On the other hand, there are companies which ill-treat a person during notice period even though the person is willing to give 100%.

My point, therefore, is that the notice period should depend on the business needs, even though you should prescribe a general maximum length for different roles. Though general advice is to prescribe longer notice period for Managers, I personally feel that it should be the shortest, since Managers can influence the team. I feel that you should have a period of 4 weeks for all cadres with riders on reduction as well as elongation. By this way all your team managers will know that they can have at least 4 weeks in which to transition the work and at the same time they can get rid of bad elements earlier and real contributors a little late.

For your information, the notice period for separation of class II and above in Government is 3 months. As Government work is full of processes, taking over period is a little longer, whereas in private the transition period should be shorter.

Cheers!

Raajaram Krishnamoorthy

Dear Ayaan,
It is a normal practice to keep 3 months notice period of senior management / leadership team / Head of function in most companies. For Mid Management team, it is kept as 2 months. 90 days is too longer period for mid management level of people and it may become a challenge for the organization to keep them productive and motivated during notice period when it is too long.
You may want to review again if you want keep 3 months for all Managers and above or make it for senior Managers and above and keep 2 months for Managers. Accordingly, you may issue an "Amendment to Appointment Letter" mentioning the revised notice clause and retain the dully signed copy of the amendment letter in employee files.
Regards
HR Professional.