[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by ghtg1

Many a times an employer invests into an employee to have him achieve a specific skill set and if that employee resigns with minimum notice it is almost impossible for them to find a replacement during the notice period. The entire momentum is shifted in employees favor during this discussion with zero to minimum consideration given to challenges faced by employer.

The profits that the employer makes is proportional to the risk. It is on the employer to design for enough slack, and plan for contingencies. What would the employer do if the employee has extended illness, family medical leave, long vacation, or an accident, would they not deal with that situation? There is literally no notice when someone falls dead, and employers deal with it just fine. One week notice should be plenty enough if contingencies are designed into the processes. If an employer is so small that he can only afford just one or two employees who do everything, then the employer could do it himself.

[Chetan_Rao]

Running a critical function with a single point of failure (one employee's expertise) is a recipe for disaster for any size of enterprise.

Voluntary resignation is just one of many ways said employee can be out of commission (temporarily or permanently), and the nature of absence is irrelevant to the impact on business.

If a critical function runs off one person's back, it indicates a lack of planning, not one of loyalty. 90 days seems like a lot, but is often not enough for the requisition-hiring-training-deployment cycle, esp. in an Indian enterprise where the potential replacement is likely serving a similarly long notice.

The answer is better contingency planning, not ever-longer notice periods.

[Pythonic]

Recently dealt with this 90 day thing and my company was kind enough to accept a shortened notice period. It does seem a bit excessive but in most companies it is also structured such that if you’re laid off you get 3 months salary.

Honestly in a kind of volatile industry and with India having 0 unemployment benefits or safety nets this does seem like a decent bargain given that your HR and Manager are decent enough to let you go sooner in a genuine case.

[IndieGooner]

My employer has 90 days notice period in India, which in my experience is rather strictly adhered to. Here's the typical chronology of a resignation here:

Day 0 - the bomb is dropped; an initial discussion with immediate manager happens
Days 1 to 10 - nothing of significance happens; employee chases management and HR for accepting resignation and to get a reliving date
Days 10 to 30 - negotiations happen; we don't salary match but offers of promotion/onsite are made; some accept, smarter ones ask for email confirmation
Days 30 to 45 - realisation that this guy is indeed leaving hit; scramble for replacement starts
Days 45 to 60 - no suitable replacement available; decision is made to over load existing team and backfill this position later
Days 60 to 90 - some KT happens; resignee is mostly unavailable during final week due to exit formalities

Our US based counterparts usually serve 2 weeks of notice - this is of course only a courtesy, they could legally leave the same day should they wish. Granted exits at onsite are a lot more rarer, but they leave a disaster in its wake because the company lulled by the long notice period in India is more often than not in a position to handle the change in a matter of 2 weeks. The fact that our typical onsite teams are skeleton crews of 1-2 people, only exacerbates the problem. We have seen huge loss in knowledge and context whenever someone leaves from the US team. This is a contingency planning problem more than anything else.

[ghtg1]

Originally Posted by GutsyGibbon

The profits that the employer makes is proportional to the risk. It is on the employer to design for enough slack, and plan for contingencies. What would the employer do if the employee has extended illness, family medical leave, long vacation, or an accident, would they not deal with that situation? There is literally no notice when someone falls dead, and employers deal with it just fine. One week notice should be plenty enough if contingencies are designed into the processes. If an employer is so small that he can only afford just one or two employees who do everything, then the employer could do it himself.

So an employee should be fine with a week's notice if employer decides to terminate services? Does every employer makes profit and that too high margins? Does employer has to deal with death of employees more often than their resignations? The extent you went to prove your point with extreme exceptions shows the bias you have for employer. Think of it - employer is also an employee working for his firm and he is vulnerable unlike how it is portrayed generally.

[callvvijay]

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Recently dealt with this 90 day thing and my company was kind enough to accept a shortened notice period.

A question here -- The first question any recruiter ask is "What is your notice period?". So, when you started your job hunt, were the potential recruiters / consultants okay with the 90 day notice period at the first place? Or, how did it work out?

[Pythonic]

Originally Posted by callvvijay

A question here -- The first question any recruiter ask is "What is your notice period?". So, when you started your job hunt, were the potential recruiters / consultants okay with the 90 day notice period at the first place? Or, how did it work out?

I quit to pursue my MBA. It’s also my first job so I don’t have this experience. I hope in an industry this is the norm they’d be okay with it, if not it is a very absurd thing :eek

[V.Narayan]

Usually in threads like this of employer vs employee matters I often become the lonely voice of the employer to the chagrin of some or many!

But here I concur, as an employer, that 30 days is more than good enough to close any handover-takeover be it a junior employee or the CEO. 90 days is the norm in some industries in India to serve as a deterrent to quitting. It is meant to be punitive. But in reality it becomes a burden for the employee, the old employer and the new employer. I both sides plan for it most jobs can be handed over to another competent person in 15 days. In my past life on two occasions a direct report i.e. a CXO level person quit and I suspected correctly it was to join competition. In both cases I took over the portfolio temporarily in 4 days and bid adieu. Later the portfolio was handed over to the new incumbent 2 or 3 months later.

[Majumdarda]

And the icing on the cake is the same company will ask for 30 days/ immediate joining while their notice period is 90 days. Somehow, they have dug in themselves, but (un)fortunately its the employees who have to suffer, at the end of the day.

In one of my past projects, an employee was even asked to extend after 90 days since a replacement could not be obtained. Eventually that search exercise never succeeded and the load was distributed amongst the rest of the team, with some carrots and reddish; off-course

[vinu_h]

HDFC Bank, the country’s largest private bank, has reduced the notice period for outgoing employees by more than half. Employees leaving the organisation will now be required to serve a notice period of just 30 days against the earlier 90 days

Link to the news article

[Small Bot]

I'm an HR fellow, so I'm not going to say much that could cause a conflict between what my personal and professional views could be.

That said, I wanted to highlight two points:
1. There is no law around the maximum notice period that can be considered illegal. So whether it's 30 or 180 days, in the eyes of the law, the company is not at fault. This might mean we need labour law reforms, but that's a topic for another day.
2. I've worked with labour unions in India, Malaysia, Poland and the UK. I can confirm that every single union invariably pushes for a longer notice period and not shorter. The reason is simple: Higher payout for unionised staff in case of layoffs. I've had a few US colleagues talk about the fact that their unions are not nearly as socialist as their counterparts in the UK.

So while I agree that certain industries can definitely have shorter notice periods without negative consequences for either party, we cannot paint a large thick brush over notice period and say that all notice periods everywhere should be shorter. Sometimes, the situation and context makes things different.

[AltoLXI]

Not only IT companies, but banks also have 90 days notice period and that seems to be changing. After ICICI, HDFC is reducing the notice period to 30 days.

HDFC Bank, the country’s largest private bank, has reduced the notice period for outgoing employees by more than half. Employees leaving the organization will now be required to serve a notice period of just 30 days against the earlier 90 days.

Link

[congruent.cars]

One more possible factor at play here: In many organizations, the variable pay is disbursed on an annual basis. And general policy seems to be that if an employee is on notice period, he/she forfeits this annual variable payout. By having a 90-days notice period,

01. Companies may be saving on the total Variable Payout amount.
02. Companies may be experiencing lesser attrition in the (Variable Payout Date - 90 days) time window.

[m8002?]

Any notice period is fine as long as the employee and the employer stick to it. But what happens is that both want it changed based on the market/economy.

When the job market is good : employees want shorted notice period to jump jobs while employer wants longer to get a replacement.

When the job market/economy is bad : employees want longer and employer wants it shorter since the severance pay is based on notice period.

And when companies indulge in changing the notice period based on the market ( like mentioned in a couple of posts above ), thats a really bad thing to do.

Originally Posted by Small Bot

2. I've worked with labour unions in India, Malaysia, Poland and the UK. I can confirm that every single union invariably pushes for a longer notice period and not shorter. The reason is simple: Higher payout for unionised staff in case of layoffs. I've had a few US colleagues talk about the fact that their unions are not nearly as socialist as their counterparts in the UK.

I am assuming this is in Manufacturing. And they will always ask for more notice period as they dont jump jobs every year/2 years. That would be true in any part of the world including India.

[Majumdarda]

Moderator, can we change the subject to the following since we are primarily talking about the IT sector in scope.

"The 90-day notice period rule in India operated IT sector companies"