How Should I Announce Longer Notice Periods to Our Team? Seeking Email Format Help

Dear Seniors, Some of our employees are serving a notice period of one month and getting relieved. Now the management feels that the notice period must be increased to a minimum of 2 months for managers and 3 months for senior managers.

Request for Email Format

Now, I would need to email everyone informing them about the same. Can anyone please help me with a format for the same? Also, I would like to know if I can get a format of the same for individual employees.

Regards

Considerations for Increasing Notice Period

You will be faced with several questions while implementing an increase in the notice period. Some of them are:

• Do you peg the notice period against basic or gross salary? In a good firm, it is based on gross. Most companies try to save by pegging it on basic.

• Do you have a succession system in place? Ideally, every position starting from a domain-level expert should be covered.

• Security is one of the 9 career anchors (RSI). It has nothing to do with position, industry, education, experience, etc.

• To save on costs, at one of my former employers, we used to skip one level while staffing. For example, if we have a manager, we would skip the senior manager position and have a VP in place. If we have a supervisor, we would skip the assistant manager and have a manager in place. You have highlighted a 1-month increase in the notice period between two consecutive ranks (manager and senior manager).

• A good practice in an exit interview is that "it needs to be conducted by a 3rd party vendor, 3-6 months after the employee is firmly settled in his new position."

Changing Notice Period Provisions

Provisions can be changed or replaced by altering the Certified Standing Order to make them applicable to existing employees. Please refer to the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act. For new joiners, add a provision for the notice period to the existing appointment letter based on their designation.

Good luck!

You can change the notice period of employees by giving a notice as per Section 9A of the Industrial Disputes Act. The said notice is required to be given 21 days before effecting such a change. You can also make such a change by amending the certified Standing Orders if you already have standing orders for your company.

Under both of these, there involves a risk. If you give a notice of change as per Section 9A, the employees affected by such a change can object to it. When an objection arises, it would be regarded as an industrial dispute. When an industrial dispute is raised, the question will be on what ground it has been raised. The notice period is a subject that has no relevance in the Industrial Disputes Act or any other Labour Act. What is present is that "an employer is bound to give notice to its employees when he wants to retrench his employee(s)." There is nothing in the Act to show that an employee is bound to serve notice. In such a circumstance, the objection by the employees will sustain, and the employer's plea will be rejected.

If the notice period is as per a written or even an oral condition of the contract of employment, then also the issue will be decided in favor of the employees because the existing contract of employment says that the employee can leave the establishment by serving one month's notice.

In another scenario, if you have certified standing orders and you wish to amend the clause of the notice period, then also you need the concurrence of employees. Without their consent, you cannot amend it. Sometimes, the employees may agree to make an amendment with a condition that the same one-month notice period would apply to those who have joined before the amendment, and for every new joiner, the proposed notice of three months shall be applicable.

However, nothing of the above said would be applicable to employees in managerial capacity to whom the ID Act will not apply.

Regards,
Madhu.T.K

You have specified that the management wants to change the notice period for managers and senior managers. In this case, there is no need for a notice and change in standing orders. These employees generally are not covered under these provisions.

Issuing Individual Letters

Issue individual letters stating that, with immediate effect, the notice period on both sides is changed to 2 months/3 months. Get the duplicate copy signed by the employee. Email may not help.

Thanks,
Sivasankaran