[MrinalSinha]

Originally Posted by Oxy

This is pure harassment from the current company.

Please email your wife's resume to mohanswamy@gmail.com. Let me see what I can do.

Usualy the offer letters mention that any party can terminate the job by notifying for x days else the party initiating the termination can pay for the number of days not served.

Usualy the authorities, tend to be pushy on not agreeing to let some one go early, but if you persist citing the terms in offer letter, the higher ups will definetly let you go as they dont want negetive propoganda at all. But this effectively means - burn the bridge.

Few organizations, mention it upfront in the offer letter about the non-negotiable notice period. There, shortening is not possible without a long legal battle, which in some scenarios will work out in the employee's favor.

Either way - this is not harrasing. Harrasment, would be to not allow someone to go even after notice. As an individual, I have made the best possible decision for me and want to quit this company in 3 days, but the PM has to take care of the Project and he tries what is best for the project. A leader tries to evaluate what best can be worked out for the employee and works on that path. Still, he might not be able to release me in 3 days if he foresees lot of risks and challenges. Gone are the days when there were many leaders, now all are PMs.

Originally Posted by hrman

^^^ Yes. This is something I have never understood. Most organisations , especially in the IT sector would not allow employees to leave before serving the three months notice. But will absolutely sit on the head for a candidate to join within 20-30 days, citing project related exigencies, phoren on site etc..
I dont find anything ethical in this at all.

I belong to the HR fraternity, and have been part of a well-known MNC product IT company. We had an understanding with competitors in the same space that we will live and let live. I.e. anyone leaving their organisation to join us, will serve full notice at your place and someone leaving us to join you will do the same.

On many occasions, believe me, its the Project Manager who will not want to relive the employee, while HR would be still ok to take a deviation.
Sorry, didnt want to start an HR vs Line debate.

Rather than unethical, I would term it immature and unrealistic. What these HRs try to do is poach on the guys who have already resigned, waiting to join someother org. The HRs are the best guys to explain on the ethics on this part.

The whole game changes when it is for a Services Org. The dynamics are really to volatile. When I dont get a replacement for someone in 45-60 days, how will one complete the KT and let go of the person before 3 months?

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

It's like paying for next 3 months to an unwilling employee for sitting in office and passing time. Here in US 2 weeks is the norm only for knowledge transfer. Laid off workers are sent out with security for the fear of sabotage.

Originally Posted by mm403

In fact in Pune also most of the companies have a 3 month notice period since last year. Not sure how effective this is as the employee is already disconnected

Usually it is to try and block someone from leaving and growing outside. Typical crab mentality. One of my ex colleagues is notorious for doing this.

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

If the manager can't get his reportees do this, he's just not fit to be a manager. If a project is documented at every stage with regular code reviews, this knowledge transfer process is redundant.

This is a totally different topic with wider repercussions. In my opinion quite a few people have been promoted to manage teams without checking their capability/ integrity. It happened when we started getting too many jobs offshored and lower/ middle management levels had to be staffed no matter what. Kinda similar to how during the first rains after a long time, when the gutters flow, the garbage comes to the top. Harsh words, but I have seen this happening a lot and I am sure so have a lot of us. I am not talking about people at levels higher than me as I am not qualified to comment on them, but of people at my level/ designation or lower.

Originally Posted by AJo

I am only stating what I have come across in MY limited experience. I am sure that all employees who are leaving a company may not act in a similar manner. (Preparing for the "brickbats" that I may be subjected to from the highly mobile IT crowd).

No brickbats from me. In fact its a good thing for your organisation in the long term.
This does not happen in bigger organisations as the immediate management either has an axe to grind against the employee, or is envious, or just a moron, or has managed the project so badly that he/ she is totally dependent on a few key people. Or all of the above

[kadurRacer]

How long would it take for a testing engineer to give KT to someone in a team which even has a buffer resource. Everyone in the team know everything, thats how they have managed the team. Now the manager is ready to relieve a team member from the team as and when required, BUT still the company insists employee to complete 3 months notice. I really dont understand the logic.

The company also says if you take a leave, notice period gets extended by a day. Hence you cannot take a leave even a single day even if you are sick. Company also says you have to maintain 8.5 hours average in these 3 months any shortfall your notice period again gets extended. You are not allowed to buy notice period, even if the agreement says you can.

Thanks to all this my wife now dont have a job.... Great MNCs and their great policies

[sanstorm]

Call it a cheap practise or whatever, the longer notice period is used as deterrant for guys to seperate.

In my organisation (IT again), operations are split between India and Toronto. The Toronto runs with 2 weeks notice period and we here run with 2-3 months notice period. The handover is more sham in my opinion

[srishiva]

Its all for survival and business interests. Managers bend the rules to suit them and have seen such people take ethics training (mandatory )

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by hrman

^^^ Yes. This is something I have never understood. Most organisations , especially in the IT sector would not allow employees to leave before serving the three months notice. But will absolutely sit on the head for a candidate to join within 20-30 days, citing project related exigencies, phoren on site etc..
I dont find anything ethical in this at all.

I was talking about this to a colleague who has just returned after spending 15 years in the US and he was quite surprised about the 3 months notice period. Another aspect that emerged was that in the US, most of the people who accept an offer tend to join the company whereas here in India we see lot of guys backing out on the day of joining. Working in a small product company, I see this happen a lot. Also, many guys use one offer as a means to bargain for higher pay.

This might be one of the reasons for the companies to not wait out 3 months. Imagine waiting for 3 months and then starting another search and wait for another 3 months. So the blame is not entirely on the companies.

Obviously, if all the companies do away with the 3 months notice period and start relieving employees in less than a months time, the trend to search for other offers during the notice period will come down.