Given notice at work

[Forgotwhat]

My work has given me my notice - 3 months and I’ve been there under two years-so I don’t have a leg to stand on.

I don’t desperately need the money-can I just go? I don’t really want to carry on working for them for another 3 months to hand things tidily over to other team members etc.

Basically I have set up a department and way of working for them, and now mostly the grunt work is done they want stuff taken over by cheaper members of staff (basically I am redundant with no redundancy rights) it’s all fine, I just don’t really want to spend three months training people how to do my job and showing them the tricks of the trade when they’ve decided to end my employment.

can I just say that’s absolutely fine, I don’t need a notice and I am happy to forgo that and leave today? I know if I give notice I have to work it- but this is different the decision to go isn’t mine-so I don’t feel I need to honour it?

They are 'working to rule' on dropping you now that you have been used.

It would be perfectly reasonable to 'work to rule' during your notice.

(Teaching someone how to replace you doesn't sound like 'any reasonable work as required'. It sounds most unreasonable!)

If you do get forced to teach or feel that you must- be sure to start from the very beginning for the student. Be really thorough. Take pleasure in doing a really good job. Get them reading up on things you began with years ago.

This unskilled person can't leap in an learn about your job until you have gone over the grounding you got at the very beginning of your own career. Add to this things you wish you had had time to train on back then too.

It could take much more than 3 months to get to a point where you could start sharing details of your present job with them. (This solid start to training will be good for them - though not at all good for the company.)

Don't go off sick. It is bad for your record. Just make sure that you are not available - because of interviews etc. - whenever it suits you. Take a very fair amount of time. Interview for anything - and as far away as possible. The experience will be good and the freedom enjoyable.

Obviously depends on op’s financial position and if she has school age children but nothing wrong with taking parental leave it’s a statutory right.
So she’s on 3 m notice until say 1/9.
Nothing at all wrong with giving notice to have 6 weeks summer as parental unpaid leave.
If she can get a job sorted for a September start and can afford it (lots of women work at a loss in summer due to childcare costs) then I wouldn’t hesitate.

I am currently trying to remove a member of staff with less than 2 years service, I still have to do everything by the book, there has to be minuted meetings etc or they can still sue me (according to my employment lawyer.)

I suspect in a small and unprofessional firm nothing will get done done re training. Manager won’t sort training and staff won’t approach as they’ll feel shitty about situation or most likely are snowed under. If they don’t learn they can’t be lumbered with op’s job. Plus probably lots on holiday etc.
Then at 11th hour they’ll realise exactly what Op does and it will be panic stations.

Minimal risk unless they can pin it on a protected characteristic, but good you are not being tempted to take short cuts.

This! Take their money whilst literally working to your job description. Malicious compliance/quiet quitting is the description? You could spend the time doing some internal housekeeping and ensuring you don’t leave any ‘unnecessary’ files/notes/hand over passwords etc that don’t belong to the company….. iyswim.

The best bit was, I already knew what I would do if this happened - they had form for this sort of thing. I went self-employed. My first client was my old company doing a job they'd not given me the time or resources to do when they employed me. It was nice to charge them as much for two days work as they used to pay me for a month.

I later found out that they came very close to approaching me to go back. I guess that would have been about six months after I left when all the things I just used to quietly get on with would have started to need attention. Or it was when the person they chose to give my tasks to managed to single-handedly approve an illegal product for manufacture and sale to a customer - they'd switched off all the validation checks I had added as being "inconvenient". I wasn't supposed to find out about that, but I stayed in touch with a couple of colleagues for a while.

I've worked in similar organisations to the OP and seen / experienced similar (not to that same level, but in the ballpark).

You know, every time I (and colleagues) have done the professional thing. Trained others, documented processes, done shadowing, the lot. Worked full notice periods, turned up on time etc.

And decades later after starting my first job, now in senior management, i regret having "integrity".

if i had my time over in 2 particular jobs, i'd have played all the same games suggested here - made vague handover notes, or stupidly detailed and irrelevant ones. walked in a 1 minute to my start time, and logged off (putting down phone calls if needed) 1 minute after my end time, Just the bare minimum to do the legal minimum, but not been the diligent worker I always was in the first 20 years.

i regret not saying, through actions, a similar FUCK YOU to the organisations that said that to me through their own management decisions.

if i were taking over from someone in that situation (and i have, once before, when a chap had worked for an org for many years and was being let go) i wouldn't blame them one bit. good on them.

fuck being the bigger person, a job is a business contract -and you are not a slave.

@Forgotwhat your notice period takes you over two years - legally that need

When I was in this situation, they told me that they had automated the system enough, that i was no longer required. In the next breath they asked me to train one of the managers on my job. I booked in the training, and then told them that I couldn't train them as my role was apparently being automated and I didn't know what that looked like.

Fortunately I had obtained legal agreement on the reference they would give me and they literally could not deny my comment.

To my knowledge it took them over a year to properly pick up what I had been doing and the automation never happened.

I think you ride it out, take sick leave, become unproductive and obstinate. Are there are any reference implications for a future job?

@Forgotwhat your notice period takes you over two years - legally that needs taking into account when accruing service. They should have served your notice before you hit 1 year 9 months.

technically this takes you into redundancy and that has it’s own strict requirements, such as notice and consultation.

have a without prejudice conversation, point out the error and mention employment tribunal- a failure to follow process immediately means they would lose a case. They will offer you a settlement agreement and you can negotiate an earlier leave date too, including what you would get for redundancy plus a bit of a sweetener.

Op said the 3 months notice takes them to 1yr 11mth.

I agree with runninglady55 completely.

Too many employers expect loyalty while having zero for employees in return. It's all about their profits, their shareholders' profits, their books and they will happily screw over hardworking individuals to maintain those while trying to demand loyalty, free overtime, long notice periods, etc in return.

I would have thought most employers would give gardening leave if they've given you notice, to protect themselves from retaliation from someone they're exiting. I'm sure it's built into our contracts that if we are given notice due to poor performance then we aren't expected to work it.

The 3 months notice period doesn't count for redundancy or unfair dismissal anyway, as it's contractual.

The statutory notice period is one week - that counts for redundancy or unfair dismissal, so effectively you have protection from 1 year 51 weeks. Sadly doesn't help the OP.

I don't think I'd weave in any problems for the company for the future (I am not sure I am that clever, anyway) but I would work to rule until I leave. Ideally you can agree a shorter notice period though.

The OP hasn't performed poorly - in fact she has probably performed too well!

However, your overall point stands - no point having an unwilling employee.

Hello

HR person here and apologies if someone else has said this. Have they consulted with you that the role is redundant or just told you their decision. They should consult and it’s likely that will take you even closer to your 2 years of service. Legally, you have an argument that if your notice period takes you over the 2 years then you are deemed to have the rights in many cases. So I’d first ask about the consultation and see where that takes you.
I appreciate it doesn’t necessarily give you a significant settlement but might make them think twice about doing the decent thing for you or for others in future.

good luck.

Did you even read op’s post?

I suspect it is a case of Op has made everything run smoothly inc on annual leave so they don’t know half of what she goes. Once she leaves and shit hits fan that’s not her problem.

If you don’t need the money go sick. Look for another job while your notice runs down.
You still build up holiday entitlement when your off.
A nice little pay off at the end.
They obviously don’t give a f about you why should you care?

I'd stay until I found another position, but slow right down. They have used you, so I wouldn't feel guilty using them in return. Work scheduled hours, never longer. Take full lunch breaks. Apply for other jobs and don't feel guilty if you need plenty of time off to prep and go for interviews. Make sure you take all owed leave and maybe book your annual holiday if you haven't yet, for the last two weeks you are due to be there, so you don't have to work your socks off doing a handover.

Although she could of course return on a counsultancy basis at 3 or 4 times her previous rate.

This is great advice