Resignation on Weekends or Holidays: When Does the Notice Period Actually Begin?

Can someone help me understand if an employee can give their resignation on a weekend or holiday? Will their notice period start from the date of resignation or the next business day? Thank you in advance for your help.

Roshni, there is a very clear guideline within every organization's resignation/termination policies—please read through the clauses again. Typically, a resignation must be given during business days and within business hours with a written form of communication, e.g., an email. Certain organizations do not even consider a resignation valid if it is sent from a personal email ID.

Advice - please refer to your organization's termination/resignation guidelines as to what must be accepted as a 'valid' resignation.

Utmost advice - Please do not confront an employee with any form of hostility. It is not an ethical practice anymore and will never be appreciated. Please make the employee comfortable and communicate with ease that the resignation would be deemed effective from XYZ date due to XYZ policy.

Thank you.

Dear Roshni,

Logically, the "notice period" will start from the next date of resignation (be it a weekend or holiday).

As rightly said by Mr. Madhu T.K., the notice period is given to choose an alternative option (from each side). So if an employee resigns on Friday, then the period (for alternative) will start from Saturday. Therefore, the weekend should be counted as part of the notice period. However, in respect of Mr. Madhu's advice related to "An HR person should be practical in dealing with such situations," I would like to add that in some cases, HRs have to be answerable for how they dealt with the situation and what company policy and contract terms apply to the situation. Hence, for them, it is difficult to deal practically and more important to keep themselves in a safe position.

Dear P-Lekha Jacobs,

I observed your suggestions are described in a proper way: 1. Description of the query, 2. Advice, and 3. Utmost advice. That gives clear and wide ideas to the poster on how to deal with the scenarios.

In this case, there may be no resignation or termination policies in the establishment. Hence, the query raised by the poster.