[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Slowjet

While I am in agreement with your post not only on this thread but other topic as well but one month notice period is what is required. There is no role / job wherein a person cannot be replaced immediately. If that was the case you wouldn't see departure of employees overnight when the organisation wants it irrespective of whether the person is CEO or a fresher..

Originally Posted by mxx

Not true. 3 months notice period is prevalent in many industries. In fact as far as I have seen, more strictly enforced..

Just for reference, because most employment in the U.S. is at-will, no notice period is required. In practice, most employees provide two weeks' notice.

They seem to survive fine with that!

In my home country, by law the employer notice period is one month, and the employer notice two months. Contractually you are allowed to change it, but the 1:2 ratio must remain.

Personally, irrespective of what is set by law and or individual contracts I would always take anybodies notice as an individual case. Some people are very eager to quit, others are eager to finish certain things and work on a proper transisition.

There are really no job that require transition more than 4-8 weeks if that. Also, no matter how motivated that employee is, once he or she has handed in their notice, it needs to happen. You can’t drag it on, just won’t work in my opinion.

I worked for four years in the USA and had to deal with hundreds of notices and new hires. I always made sure the line manager involved felt it was their responsibility to ensure a proper succession planning. If there isn’t, don’t try and keep the employee who has resigned. It’s a management issue, not an employee issue.

If a particular job is so unique and or complex it requires a three month notice period, how come the employee is leaving. The employer should have pampered him/her. They should have been bending over backwards to keep such a valuable employee at all cost. How many people have such unique skills? No, three months notice is a sign of poor management no matter how you look at it.

Jeroen

[IndieGooner]

I side with the opinion that 3 month notice period is there to make it hard for people to leave and nothing else. I have heard of cases where HR insisted on the employee serving 3 months notice as a matter of policy.

Case 1 - a colleague resigned recently and is set to complete his 3 months in a few days time. He asked for an early release which the manager considered favourably and was willing to let him go a month early. However, HR put their foot down and told him that serving 3 months is now mandatory. I have also come across such cases recently while interviewing internal candidates for our team. Remember that these folks being interviewed are on the bench and the company is paying them for doing nothing but is not ready to let them go. Apparently, exceptions are given on a case by case basis - I have heard that people who can prove that they are heading for higher studies or have secured a government job are allowed to leave sooner.

Case 2 - several years ago a friend of mine resigned from a huge global MNC that employs a lot of people in India. His project released him almost immediately and he was on bench. Again in this case HR informed that as a matter of policy he had to serve 3 months before he can leave. Only exception was for young females who were resigning to join their prospective grooms! My friend not being young, unmarried or female for that matter spent next 3 months puttering around the office doing nothing. The company that offered him his new job moved on to another candidate but luckily for him this was a boom period and they could eventually offer him a different position when he could join eventually.

[Samurai]

IT companies in India now follow 3 months notice period as a zero tolerance policy, rather than need basis. My BIL resigned from Accenture while on bench, he had nothing to handover. Yet they didn't let him go for 3 months, while he kept begging to be released.

Employers have made it zero tolerance policy to restrict folks from asking for exceptions. That means, even if 1% needs 3 months handover, they apply it to all, because they can. Meanwhile, for 99% resignees, it is just harassment.

Nothing short of an amendment to the labour law will stop this silly practice.

Originally Posted by v1p3r

If companies try to take everyone who breaks the hypothetical bond you've proposed to court, their legal teams will be larger than their bench + onsite strength. Not feasible.

You obviously know they don't have to go after everyone. If they just go after 1/25, it will get others in line. If they have managed to enforce the totally one-sided 3 months notice period, why won't a fair two-sided agreement have any teeth?

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Samurai

If they have managed to enforce the totally one-sided 3 months notice period,...

Have companies enforced these things legally in a lot of cases? I don't know for sure obviously, but I don't think too many employees will actually take this to court. I think the majority of notice period "compliance" in these cases is simply because employees don't want the hassle or the repercussions when it comes to looking for references, employment letter, full and final settlement, etc. But in how many cases have IT companies actually gone to court to have to enforce a notice period? I think in the handful of cases of non compliance, the company too will just let it go. Again, I don't know for sure, but I think the courts will side with the employee on this one if such a case actually ends up in court.

(And as an aside, what does it say about a company if the only way they can retain employees is by making it as inconvenient as possible for them to leave?)

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by am1m

Have companies enforced these things legally in a lot of cases? I don't know for sure obviously, but I don't think too many employees will actually take this to court.

Not even 1/100 employees will approach the court. That is why it works for the employers.

It is a technique used in manufacturing too. If the process makes 1 defective item in 10000 items produced, it is cheaper not to fix the process, but replace/payoff whenever a customer reports a defective item. Of course, if the defect results in expensive liabilities, it may backfire.

[shipnil]

Originally Posted by Samurai

IT companies in India now follow 3 months notice period as a zero tolerance policy, rather than need basis.

I work in one of the WITCH companies. One of my colleague resigned last month, while on bench. He was let go in a week's time.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by shipnil

I work in one of the WITCH companies. One of my colleague resigned last month, while on bench. He was let go in a week's time.

Is that the norm in your company?

[shipnil]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Is that the norm in your company?

I am aware of this case with respect to bench. For other resignations, if the employee is in a billable role, the employee was required to serve full notice period.

[JediKnight]

Nine in ten CEOs in the U.S. (91%) believe a recession will arrive in the coming 12 months, while 86% of CEOs globally feel the same way...

In America, half of the CEOs (51%) say they’re considering workforce reductions during the next six months — and in the global survey overall,
eight in ten CEOs say the same...

It is “likely” and/or “extremely likely” that remote workers will be laid off first, according to a majority (60%) of 3,000 managers...

Full article here.

[UD17]

Originally Posted by akkosetto

Essentially the 3 months notice in IT is just to make switching difficult for employees and because firms can get away with it.

PS: Fun fact is many of these companies ask lateral hires if they can join in 1 month.

Company also need to find suitable candidates after resignation of the employee and for many roles bench is not available (That is a necessary truth for manufacturing firm like ours). So for effective knowledge transfer they had to have some overlap of incoming and outgoing candidates. So they asked candidates if they can join early because most of the companies do follow 3 months notice period, this results in no overlap at all.

[guru_max]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Is that the norm in your company?

I have witnessed such an incidence first hand, though this was some years ago. Besides this ,there's also the option of foregoing the salary if you choose to exit before the date. Some companies have this.

[akkosetto]

Originally Posted by UD17

Company also need to find suitable candidates after resignation of the employee and for many roles bench is not available (That is a necessary truth for manufacturing firm like ours). So for effective knowledge transfer they had to have some overlap of incoming and outgoing candidates. So they asked candidates if they can join early because most of the companies do follow 3 months notice period, this results in no overlap at all.

If a company relies on an outgoing employee giving transition to a new-hire in 2 months, then I am concerned about them.
If US companies can manage transition with 2 weeks or lesser why not here?

The double standard is expecting hires to buyout notice period while enforcing 3 months for their own.

[UD17]

Originally Posted by akkosetto

If a company relies on an outgoing employee giving transition to a new-hire in 2 months, then I am concerned about them.
If US companies can manage transition with 2 weeks or lesser why not here?

The double standard is expecting hires to buyout notice period while enforcing 3 months for their own.

Well some bigger company can definitely do create a bigger bench that but not all. Most of the auto- components manufacturer are lean and do not have leverage to put bench due to the fact that they work in wafer thin margins. So dependability on key people is very high. You can not compare the scenario of US to India at all, the work ecosystem are too far to compare.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by am1m

(And as an aside, what does it say about a company if the only way they can retain employees is by making it as inconvenient as possible for them to leave?)

An alternative - Similarly what does it say about the employees writing on this thread that most of them, or at least a very significant proportion, work for these very despicable rotters - the WITCH and MAANG companies - keep joining them, keep complaining bitterly!!!! Clearly it couldn't be as bad as this thread makes it out to be otherwise why do so many work for the enemy. Obviously there are benefits that lakhs believe are worth it in the balance.

The 3-month rule is a two way rule. If they sack an employee the company has to pay him/her 3-months of salary and vice versa. Some of the reasons that companies i.e. employers need to build in these attributes is the high attrition rate amongst employees job hoping constantly, signing up and not showing up etc. While the employers' practices of bench management might not be all kosher employees in the IT industry are no saints either.

In my uneducated opinion the current business model has a finite life. Sooner rather than later some or a substantial part of the coding being done by software employees will shift to machines. In what time frame I cannot say, but likely within my lifetime.

[anish]

I work for one of the bigger new age companies in India. For us the notice period, across levels is 1 day. You can resign and leave the same day if you want to But I see most of the folks leave in 2-6 weeks depending on the time needed to hand over their responsibilities. And this is totally voluntary.

When you trust your employees to do the right thing, more often than not they will do the right thing.
PS: If you are asked to leave by the company, the you are given a month’s notice.