Permie jacks it in and walks

[GCR99]

permie I work with calls in sick with stress, takes 2 weeks off. Nothing wrong with him so we assume he's on Sky watching the test series. He then comes in and asks to see HR and resigns with immediate effect. Apparently permies here have to give 3 months notice but he gives 3 minutes. We later find out he's in Netherlands on a contract so had to move asap. My question is why do companies stipulate 3 months notice when he basically told them to shove it and walks out?
They presumably are not chasing him and couldn't do anything if they did find him. What's the legal standpoint out of interest?

[ThomasSoerensen]

permie I work with calls in sick with stress, takes 2 weeks off. Nothing wrong with him so we assume he's on Sky watching the test series. He then comes in and asks to see HR and resigns with immediate effect. Apparently permies here have to give 3 months notice but he gives 3 minutes. We later find out he's in Netherlands on a contract so had to move asap. My question is why do companies stipulate 3 months notice when he basically told them to shove it and walks out?
They presumably are not chasing him and couldn't do anything if they did find him. What's the legal standpoint out of interest?

Good man.

[NotAllThere]

permie I work with calls in sick with stress, takes 2 weeks off. Nothing wrong with him so we assume he's on Sky watching the test series. He then comes in and asks to see HR and resigns with immediate effect. Apparently permies here have to give 3 months notice but he gives 3 minutes. We later find out he's in Netherlands on a contract so had to move asap. My question is why do companies stipulate 3 months notice when he basically told them to shove it and walks out?
They presumably are not chasing him and couldn't do anything if they did find him. What's the legal standpoint out of interest?

AIUI and IANAL...

The employer has one of two options.

1. Require him to stop working for the other company, continue to pay him for the duration of the notice period. He is not obliged to come into work. If they do this, and he carries on working for the other company, then they can sue him for breach of contract. Even then, if he started working for the other company after one month after giving notice (assuming paid monthly), court action wouldn't achieve anything.

2. Let him go.

In the UK at least, notice periods protect the employee, not the employer. many employers seem not to be aware of this when they stipulate 3, 6 or even 12 month notice periods. The exceptions are valid clauses to protect themselves against competitors.

[Unicorn]

First Post

My first post after lurking for some time on the forum. The legal position for this guy (without seeing his contract therefore an assumption) is he will have breached his contract with his employer. His employer could bill him for costs incurred during his notice period by them hiring temporary replacements etc.

[VectraMan]

WHS.

The danger of doing this sort of thing is the company use it as a reason to withold your last month's salary. Not sure where you stand legally, but it would be a bit of a fight.

Back in my old permie job somebody walked out without notice on pay day, or so he thought. The company managed to not pay him by cancelling the whole BACS run (and pissing off everybody else by paying late) all to avoid giving this guy his final month's money.

[expat]

AIUI and IANAL...

The employer has one of two options.

1. Require him to stop working for the other company, continue to pay him for the duration of the notice period. He is not obliged to come into work. If they do this, and he carries on working for the other company, then they can sue him for breach of contract. Even then, if he started working for the other company after one month after giving notice (assuming paid monthly), court action wouldn't achieve anything.

2. Let him go.

In the UK at least, notice periods protect the employee, not the employer. many employers seem not to be aware of this when they stipulate 3, 6 or even 12 month notice periods. The exceptions are valid clauses to protect themselves against competitors.

1. He is obliged to come into work.

2. if it's 2-way, it protects the employer too.

3. replace him with a contractor for 3 months, and sue him for the cost of that, since that is their material loss from his breach of contract.

[SueEllen]

WHS.

The danger of doing this sort of thing is the company use it as a reason to withold your last month's salary. Not sure where you stand legally, but it would be a bit of a fight.

Legally if you have done the work they can't get away with not paying you and you can take legal action against them for this and throw in a few more claims for good measure to show that you had a good reason to walk out.

Luckily for most employers most employees don't know this.

However the employer is allowed to counter sue the employee for breach of contract which can be for more money than the month's salary.

If the employee takes legal action against the employer through in either a tribunal or small claims court it usually ends up costing the employer more money than the employee, due to solicitor's fees and other costs.

So virtually all small businesses I know where an employee tries this they pay up rather than be faced with claims from disgruntled employees.

[NotAllThere]

1. He is obliged to come into work.

2. if it's 2-way, it protects the employer too.

3. replace him with a contractor for 3 months, and sue him for the cost of that, since that is their material loss from his breach of contract.

True of B2B contracts, but not employment.

1. Not in the UK - employment law mucks up the contract law (and anti-slavery laws prevent you obliging an employee to actually work.) The option is gardening leave or let them go. The best an employer can do is gardening leave until the end of the pay period.

2. If you can't oblige someone to come into work, and you can only enforce gardening leave over the payment period, then you can't enforce a 3 month notice period, unless you're paying them quarterly.

3. Possibly. So long as you kept paying the permie. As soon as you stop, he's free to go. And again, only for payment period.

Of course, this was back in 2000, when I was a permie manager working closely with HR over these very issues (also the problem of getting rid of useless permies - slow and difficult to do without going to tribunal and losing ). I suppose it's possible that NL have weakened employment rights for permies...

Note: when there is a demonstrable negative affect on the business - like all those trade secrets in your head - then some restrictive clauses can still be enforced.

Edit: to put it another way - it's contract breach, but there's little remedy available to the employer.

[KentPhilip]

The other thing is how are they going to get a reference?

If their new employer/client asks for a reference from the old one, and the old one says they left without honouring their notice period and are therefore a complete tulip then they'll likely be sacked by the new company.

tulips to you n' all!

[Advocate]

Which Co in NL?