Is It Fair for My Former Employer to Withhold My Relieving and Experience Letters?

Hi,

I was working with an ITES BPO company. I have sent my resignation through email to my supervisor, HR head, and Operations head. However, I never got a reply. Since I have already accepted an offer from another organization, I informed my supervisor, HR head, and Company head that my last working day would be the 9th of July. I returned all company assets like the laptop, etc., and discontinued my presence after duly informing all of them.

Now, my previous organization says they will process my F&F without providing my relieving letter and experience letter, even though I am willing to pay for the notice period. While my appointment letter only states that I am liable to serve or pay for not serving the notice period (I was at a Sr. Manager level). Is this right? Are they following the right HR practices? Who should I seek help from?

Please help.

Regards,
Kapil

Dear Kapil,

It will depend on your company's policy whether they accept resignation via email or not. If you had submitted a resignation letter in hard copy and received acceptance, it would have been better.

From your question, I assume that if you had sent the resignation letter before leaving the organization (i.e., before 9 July) and had not received any response, why did you not ask for clarification or confirmation?

Does it matter whether your company's practices are right or wrong? There is also fault on your end. Now, you have two options: 1) Talk to your boss and HR, request their input, and try to resolve the situation. 2) Seek legal remedy, but this could be time-consuming, costly, and energy-draining. (According to IT laws, an email serves as valid evidence, making a resignation via email equivalent to a hard copy resignation letter.)

Please let me know if you need further assistance.

Regards, [Your Name]

Whether the employer is following the right practices or not is not the issue here. As a responsible employee, you could have obtained a relieving order from your employer before leaving the organization. Do you think that leaving an organization where you were working in a senior position just by sending an email is the right practice? The best remedy is to meet the employer (the person responsible for relieving you) and settle the issue amicably through discussion.

Thank you for your response.

While I understand that ideally, I should have had the resignation accepted, my immediate supervisor and HR Manager were not ready to accept the resignation. I had no choice but to communicate through mail and finally declare that I would not be continuing my services from the 9th.

Even now, they continue to say that they can only provide Full and Final settlement without any experience letter and relieving letter, and they are not ready to communicate on this at all. It would be helpful if you could advise on how I can take it up legally, if need be.

Warm regards,
Kapil