Notice Period Dilemma: Is Extending to Three Months for Managers a Good Move?

I need your expert advice on the notice period to be given by employees/employers for separation. In my company, we are currently following a one-month notice period or one month's salary in lieu of notice by the employee or management for leaving the job. Of late, we have realized that a one-month notice by managers and above is not sufficient for proper handover or finding a suitable replacement. Hence, management has suggested increasing the notice period for managers and above to three months.

Pros and Cons of Notice Periods

I would appreciate it if you could share your views on the pros and cons of a one-month versus a three-month notice period and what the general concept followed in the industry is. Is there any legality involved in making such changes, especially concerning existing employees?

Thanks, and looking forward to your earliest response.

Regards,

I am a professional in Facilities Management with 35 years of experience. In my opinion, if a person is responsible and sincere in their job, they will surely do their best to deliver what they can during the notice period. It also depends on the importance of the position they hold and how much of their contribution needs to be handed over to the next employees.

In my experience, you will find very few people who are sincere. However, once an employee resigns, their "honeymoon" period starts, and they may negatively influence other team members. If the employee does not hold an important portfolio, they should be asked to leave immediately instead of causing disruption in the environment.

Thanks

According to me, for Managers and above, the notice period should be 3 months. The profiles handled by Managers are a bit overloaded and tedious; therefore, the handover also takes time. Additionally, getting a new Manager as a replacement for the old one takes time as the new Manager also has to serve their notice period in their organization.

The change in the notice period for Managers and above from 1 month to 3 months is a good idea. Even in my organization, we have a notice period of 3 months for Managers and above.

However, my friend Naresh mentioned that in the case of an underperforming employee resigning, the notice period can be waived off with the approval of the functional head and head of HR.

Regarding the changes to the notice period, you can draft a letter to circulate to all employees (individually) stating the change in their notice period. But before issuing the letter, I suggest you need to get it cleared through your legal department to avoid any complications in the near future.

Regards

The following chart specifies the periods of statutory notice required.

Length of Employment and Notice Required

- Less than 3 months: None
- 3 months but less than 1 year: 1 Month
- 1 year but less than 3 years: 2 Months
- 3 years but less than 4 years: 3 Months
- 4 years but less than 5 years: 4 Months
- 5 years but less than 6 years: 5 Months
- 6 years but less than 7 years: 6 Months
- 7 years but less than 8 years: 7 Months
- 8 years or more: 8 Months

However, in the corporate sector, we follow the following:

1) Junior-Level Employee - Notice Period of 30 Days
2) Middle-Level Employee - Notice Period of 90 Days
3) Senior-Level Employee - Notice Period of 180 Days
4) Management-Level Employee - Notice Period of 365 Days

The purpose of the notice period is to ensure that an employee gets sufficient time to hand over their tasks and job responsibilities, to ensure knowledge transfer to the designated person, and also to ensure that the company finds a replacement. The company may or may not use the entire time of the allotted notice period and may relieve the person before the completion of the notice period.

I hope this will help.

Thanks,
Regards

For the termination of service of any employee, the management sets the notice period. For workmen/supervisor cadre, it will be mentioned in the Standing Orders (generally one month on either side). For officers and managers, it will vary from company to company. It may be three months on either side. Issue a circular to all employees about the management's decision.

Regards,
D. Gurumurthy HR/IR Consultant

Proactive Succession Planning and Handover Strategies

I believe the handover of responsibilities should start long before the employee even submits his/her resignation. Utilizing cross-functional work sharing is very important and also helps with succession planning. In other words, if the position is a managerial one, HR should be thinking about the progression of their careers, and building the bench strength requires that knowledge sharing takes place constantly.

Ask yourself, when this person was on holiday, who was able to fill their role in their absence? That person should be looked at for a possible backfill for the vacating position, and then recruit for the position that the promoted employee vacates. It will be a less costly position, the transition will be smoother because it is managed in-house, and if knowledge sharing is already taking place, it will take much less time. Even better, the newly promoted person will be able to train his own successor.

Organic growth within an organization is the best kind as it is less costly, more engaging for the employee, and motivating, which contributes to higher morale. It is also very helpful to have the new manager participate in hiring his/her replacement as they are the expert in their role and the input is very valuable. Proactivity is so much better than reacting to a vacancy.

Since the transition will take less time, you can go ahead and let your exiting employee leave with his gratuity paid out so he can secure employment elsewhere if necessary or start his new role. Certainly not in many cases, but there can be ill feelings on the part of the exiting employee, so this will avoid any costly or intentional errors on behalf of the departing employee.

This is a very ticklish issue. Every company has its own conventions and policies that generally come out of local needs. There are different schools of thought on this issue, but basically, the necessity of a notice period is to take care of knowledge transfer from the person to be relieved. I know of companies that have excellent knowledge management systems and processes and relieve people at their will, making the person leaving happy. The general rule that you should follow should be based on the required knowledge transition. A person in the notice period is generally a "why-should-I-care" person who may damage the system more with their attitude. On the other hand, there are companies that ill-treat a person during the notice period even though the person is willing to give 100%.

My point, therefore, is that the notice period should depend on the business needs, even though you should prescribe a general maximum length for different roles. Though the general advice is to prescribe a longer notice period for Managers, I personally feel that it should be the shortest since Managers can influence the team. I feel that you should have a period of 4 weeks for all cadres with riders on reduction as well as elongation. By this way, all your team managers will know that they can have at least 4 weeks in which to transition the work, and at the same time, they can get rid of bad elements earlier and real contributors a little late.

For your information, the notice period for separation of class II and above in the Government is 3 months. As Government work is full of processes, the taking-over period is a little longer, whereas in the private sector, the transition period should be shorter.

Cheers!

Regards,
Raajaram Krishnamoorthy

It is a common practice to have a 3-month notice period for senior management, leadership team, and heads of function in most companies. For mid-management teams, the notice period is typically set at 2 months. A 90-day notice period can be too long for mid-management level employees, posing a challenge for the organization to maintain their productivity and motivation during this extended period.

You may want to reconsider whether to apply the 3-month notice period to all managers and above or restrict it to senior managers and above, while keeping the notice period at 2 months for managers. Accordingly, you can issue an "Amendment to Appointment Letter" detailing the revised notice clause and retain a duly signed copy of the amendment letter in the employees' files.

Regards,
HR Professional.