Quick question about employment contracts please?

[rhondajean]

Anyone who works in hr will hopefully know this.

If an employment contract states the length of notice period which the employee must give, in excess of statutory minimum, say three months, but does not specify the employer must give similar notice, is that implied that the employer must do the same? Is it a legal clause? What would be situation be if the employer tried to give the minimum statutory notice period?

Thanks in advance!

Would really depend on the exact wording.

It's not automatically implied, no. What does it actually say about employer notice?

It's usual for employer notice to mirror employee notice, but not a legal requirement. My personal view is it's not particularly fair to expect a certain amount of notice from an employee if the employer is not prepared to give the same, but there's nothing in law saying the employer must give the same.

Am very interested in this. My new contract says:

1. during 3 month probationary, notice is a week on either side. Fine. Normal.
2. BUT, After probationary, for them to give notice, it is the statutory of 1 week, up to 2 years, then a further week each year, up to 12 weeks. But for me, I have to give a months notice. That seemed unfair. But I wasn't sure whether it was worth querying.

Does your notice period go up also Oblomov? Or does it stay at one month regardless of how long you stay?

I do agree that different notice periods is a little unfair, but there's nothing legally wrong with it. I think perhaps employers are in a bit more of a powerful position at the moment due to the state of the job market, so this kind of thing is becoming a bit more common.

You could always query it in a 'just checking this is correct' way?

Thanks, Flowery.
No, stays the same.
Was thinking the same thing. It is an Employers market, in recession. And the move to 2 years is to re-dress the lack of power Employers have had, until recently.
And , don't want to upset anyone, only been there a week ! so maybe just politely 'enquire'.

Hang on a cotton pickin' minute! New job? Congratulations!

Thank you
And sorry for the hi-jack OP.
My 2nd (and final) 'problem' is:
My offer letter said sick pay on directors discretion. But my contract says ssp only. So no sick pay for 1st four days. and ssp is statutory minimum requirement. so directors discretion doesn't actually come into it. seems like a contradiction between offer letter and contract. they have been 'burnt' twice by employees since they interviewed me, do you think that is it? a tightening by their hr advisor, but an actual mistake here? and is it worth questioning?

Olblomov was you offer unconditional? Ie not Dependent on referees etc?

If so then tht forms a contract when you accepted it.

The easiest thing to do is just have a chat with them, it might be a mistake.

There isn't any legislation about notice periods having to be the same (I'm a cipd member and checked it out there too) but there is a requirement for them to be fair, I'm trying to define what would be counted as unfair but no one anywhere seems to have any case law etc...

Thank you Rhonda. Unconditional.