Handed Notice In and All Hell Broke Loose...

[MyNameDefinatelyIsntJanet]

I handed my notice in at work yesterday, it did not go the way I was expecting and I need to know where I stand legally.

For context, it's a fairly senior position, a big jump up the ladder for me and it took them 6 months to find someone to hire into my role before they got me. I've only been in the role 6 months. Over those 6 months, it's become abundantly clear that I'm not the right person for this particular role. They need someone with strategic skills and I'm a technician. I'm bloody good at my job and an industry expert, but they don't need that skill, they need someone who can do the big picture stuff with clients and that's not me. I've stopped enjoying the job and I do feel that it was mis-sold to me at the interview stage, but I'm not bitter about that. I tried it, it didn't work out.

I gave these reasons when I handed in my notice but my line manager was apoplectic with rage. She called me a liar and accused me of using her/ the company as a leg up and that this had been my intention all along (I'm going to an equally senior role in a much bigger specialist agency). This is completely untrue. The job I'm going to is a technical role and much more in line with my skill set but at the same level as now iyswim.

She walked out of the room and slammed the door behind her and told me to leave the office immediately. So I did and have had no contact since.

WTF do I do now? I haven't gone in to the office today but I've been responding to client emails as usual this morning as there's stuff I need to get done.

I've since realised I was never asked to return my signed contract when I was hired and found it in my collection of papers this morning. I have signed it, but they don't have a copy.

I REALLY don't want to go back to the office after yesterday, but I have a 6 month notice period so not having to serve this would be great. I'm not sure where I stand legally. I'm prepared to hitch up my big girl pants and go back in but I'm not sure if they're going to want that so my questions are:

Legally, do they have to pay me for my 6 month notice period even though they've asked me to leave the office (they haven't asked me to leave my position yet).

As they don't have evidence of my signed contract, do I have to serve out my 6 months?

I want to hand over things properly and make sure they've got a plan for my leaving, but should I even care about this after yesterday? I don't want to leave my team in the lurch

Also, the new company is not a competitor of any kind with my current one.

Help?

If they want you to work from home, they will need to do a risk assessment, as I understand it - including the possible risk to your mental health/wellbeing of being isolated from your colleagues. That was certainly the case when I moved from an office role to WFH (albeit voluntarily!)

your place of work is in your contract. I don't think they can force you to work from home but they can put you on garden leave instead. If you don't want to work from home then say you are happy to work out your full notice but sadly your residence isn't suitable as a work venue. You'll need to work from the office. If they are concerned about you overhearing secrets then I suggest they give you a proper office rather than a little cubicle. But you might need to remind them that you remain bound by confidentiality and wouldn't be allowed to divulge anything you overheard to new employer (or anyone else) after you left.

I am a work from home person and it isn't for everyone! It is also not possible if the environment is noisy, you have no room for a desk etc..

Didn't you say they took 6 months to recruit you? Then you're unlikely to get that gardening leave after 3 months, surely.

I'm torn between thinking their offer is OK and makes sense, and thinking (on a fairly instinctive basis) it would be a bad idea to accept.

Unfortunately if your contract requires you to work six months notice, they can hold you to that and working from home isn’t unusual when someone has resigned and the organization don’t want them privy to daily discussions about the business.

Good luck, NotJanet, don't stress too much and stick to your guns. That company sounds terrible and they're clearly panicking about losing you, but if they didn't see this coming after you raised your misgivings in an astonishing 15(!) meetings with CEO and MD, they only have themselves to blame.

DH has worked with a number of companies startups where pie in the sky thinking and ignoring problems until they go away was par for the course, so this sounds horribly familiar (including the MD losing their temper and totally shambolic HR)

Must admit I am finding myself completely puzzled at the people admonishing the OP for not asking to extend the probation period.

Employers and employees have different legal rights and responsibilites, and a probationary period is an instrument designed primarily to protect employers from difficulties in dismissing an unsuitable employee.

In order to attract the right calibre of candidates, employment contracts at senior levels include very favourable terms for the employee apart from pay (working hours, sick leave, holiday entitlement, maternity leave, notice periods etc) that well exceed statutory requirements. To protect the employer from having to give all of that to a candidate they don't yet know, they can temporarily suspend these conditions by means of a probationary period. But they can't make it unreasonably long (which is why 6 months is standard for senior positions) and they can't just extend it willy nilly either. So,

1. Unless the contract specifically states that the employer reserves the right to extend the probation period, it cannot be extended.

2. Unless the contract specifically states that the probationary period should be treated as continuing until the employer tells the employee that it has been successfully completed, the probationary period ends exactly on schedule (so if it's 6 months, starting 1 Jan, it automatically finishes 30 June). In that case, it's entirely irrelevant if the end of probation meeting is postponed for a couple of days or not, the probation period expires exactly as set out in the contract.

3. An extension to the probation period must be suggested by the employer well in advance of the probation period ending, otherwise as stated above it will expire as per the deadline.

4. The employer must have a good reason to extend the probation period - if performance reviews are positive, like OPs, the employer would find it hard to justify. They would also have to set out exactly how long it is extended for and what the employee would have to do to be confirmed in the role. As the employer did not have a problem with OPs performance, what exactly would they be setting out here?

Most importantly though, no employee is obliged to renounce their rights to protect the interests of an employer - wether legally or morally or any other -ly. Which is why telling OP that she should have asked to extend the probation period makes no sense whatsoever.

This is business and the OP did not state at any point she would insist on 6 months PILON or anything like that. On the contrary, she said she was happy to fulfill her contractual obligations to fulfill her notice period. I would never advise anyone to disadvantage themselves just to be perceived to be nice or fair or whatever.

And I definitely wouldn't take any notice of people telling the OP not to get above herself because she's only 27. For godness sake, it is entirely possible to be shit hot at your job at that age - and having been hired by two companies at a senior level by 27 should be more than enough proof that the OP isn't the only one to think that.

Well done for staying strong and clear-headed throughout this rollercoaster!

Can you request that you split your time working from home and in the office? Obviously I don't know what your work space is like, but are there any meeting rooms or tucked away spaces where they would be more comfortable with you working from? Can you pitch it that there is a work benefit to you having access to the office/colleagues, but not participating in strategy meetings etc.

Sounds like you are in a good position to achieve a decent middle ground position. They clearly need you.

Good luck

Surely 3 months of wfh isn't that bad?

X with Cath2907. Her post makes sense.

Sorry, I'm having a bit of a moment so if my next responses aren't very measured, bear with me. It all seems to have caught up with me all at once. Thank god it was now and not in the meeting!

Re: Working from home: I really really need people to bounce off. My job is fast paced and it requires ideas/ conversation. I learn by listening/ talking and if I'm not learning I feel completely demotivated and out of touch with the industry as a whole. I work 1 day a week from home to get my grunt work done because I like to use office time to have conversations about projects. What they're proposing is those conversations happen without me, are communicated to me via email and I produce work and send it back to them without getting an overview on the whole project. It will be soul destroying to be honest

I'm guessing that you are an extrovert OP, and need a certain amount of social contact in your day. If you know that working from home will drive you nuts then don't agree to it (check your contract, but it would be unusual to have a clause that would allow them to force you to work from home). They can let you work in the office but not attend any planning meetings. Some members of staff might be 'off' with you, but hopefully everyone will try to act professionally.

I think their offer of working three months, followed by either working another three months or having three months gardening leave is quite reasonable. If you know that doing nothing at all for the last three months won't suit you then perhaps you could line up a course or something, not necessarily a professional one perhaps an outside interest but that you will have some social contact.

You say that you will hate working from home and I understand that. Some people love it, but I never liked it. Home to me, is where I relax and work’s a different environment.

Would it help if you could get out of the house to work. Dunno where, just thinking aloud really, but it might define the boundary between the two.

Have you ever officially worked from home before? If not then I think you need to say that it's not suitable unless they provide the tools.

Also, find out what they define as 'consultant.' That doesn't indicate a full time role to me, more a dipping in and out rather than 8 hours at a desk.

CharlieParley - if you mean me, it's not about her not being shit hot - I'm absolutely sure she is - but more about relating to people, taking account of the whole picture, people's interrelationships, their sensibilities and partial (in both senses of the word) communication - as OP herself said. (Sorry for third person, OP).

Well done for doing so well in that meeting. I might have gone to pieces if I had been in your shoes at that meeting.

My (for what it's worth) advice would be to sleep on it today. Get things straight in your head as to what outcome you really want from this. Would 3 months notice be sufficient, considering they took so long to get you on board?? I would think that this might be the starting point of negotiating your exit strategy.
Decide what the best outcome for you would be.
Document the decision points that came out of the meeting today and if necessary, put exact timelines on them so you will have a date when you are no longer working for them (either on gardening leave or some other way that they have you on their payroll).
If needs be, meet with them again and see what they say to your suggestions. I realise that you want to leave, but from their perspective they took 6 months searching before they got you. It might take that long this time too. Just make sure that whatever you agree to works for you.

Tbh, OP, I'm not sure being in 'internal isolation', be it physical or social, in the office won't be worse for you than WFH. I wonder if you should go back and ask them what the alternative to their offer would be.

I can see why working from home for that long will be a problem tbh. I work from home sometimes and quite enjoy it (I have Aspergers so peace and quiet suits me!) but it only works when I do it for a day or two at a time. I've worked from home for longer before - I broke my knee so couldn't get to the office so WFH for a couple of months and I felt very out of it, disengaged etc.

I'm now in the position where I'm going to have to almost exclusively WFH again for 3 months (bad pregnancy) and I am finding the prospect soul destroying. It can be a very lonely existence when you're doing it all day every day, and everything tends to slow down as you can't just stick your head over the desk and say "hey Bob, what do you think of XYZ."

OP you need to think laterally, you can set up an open line to work so you are in the office, skype or whatever. Negotiate what you can.

I know it isn't the same but if you can set those parameters and maybe expect to be in office for a weekly team meeting that might suit both sides?

I'd state that your home isn't suitable to wfh out of so you'd need to continue working 4 days in the office. You're happy to be left out of planning meetings, but in order to fulfil your role effectively you need to be able to talk to people. Remind them that your new role is not with a competitor and any strategy that you may be privy to would be in strictest confidence and not of interest to your future employer.

You CAN push for what you want. At least push for the working environment that means your next 3 months aren't detrimental to your mh. Good luck. You come across so well and sound so reasonable. I fancy offering you a job. What industry do you work in?

Right I've pulled myself together. I texted recruitment guy and he called me straight away. I explained what's happened and he's calling new job now to find out about earliest start dates, their take on it etc.

Don't take my confidence in my ability as arrogance, it comes off that way on MN, but I don't go around at work telling everyone I'm shit hot at my job . I'm quiet, completely avoid drama at all times, keep my self to my self generally but I'm confident in my ability and very capable in role, it's just the wrong role.

What use are earliest start dates to you, whilst you're still under contract to your current employers for six months?

If you don't want to do working from home then tell them that.

Explain that you understand that you will need to recuse yourself from strategic discussions beyond the term of your employment, but that it won't allow you to offer the best service to your clients if you aren't in the environment that enables you to do your best work.

If MD isn't happy with that then they need to put you on gardening leave. TBH I'd probably be putting them on gardening leave since they seem a bit inept to say the least but that's probably a decision for another day.

The only thing I do wonder op, is whether you’re totally right to specialise in the technical side - this company must’ve had good feedback from clients about you to be pushing it.

I understand the technical side is your strong suit from your perspective, but sometimes we can be doing a better job than our comfort zone is telling us.

Iamagrey it affects my position in therms of whether I fight for early release so they dont have to pay me my full wage for 6 months when at the very least I'll be much less effective in role (it's in my contract that this is acceptable is both parties agree), or whether I accept their terms/ ask for full gardening leave.

What they're proposing is those conversations happen without me, are communicated to me via email and I produce work and send it back to them without getting an overview on the whole project. It will be soul destroying to be honest

OP, I really mean this very kindly. You're on your way out. You are not going to get a overview of the whole project any more, and the MD dislikes and mistrusts you.

They can insist that you stay for the remaining 6 months. Perhaps you can insist on working from the office and getting them to protect their secrecy in other ways, but I suspect the MD will make things very difficult for you anyway.

In your shoes, I would try to to see this time as a sort of period to learn how to work as a consultant or freelancer.

thinks it's too outing to mention the specific industry I think, but it's definitely a question whether I want to go to client services/ management or specialise in my chosen service. There's strategic elements to both, but in vastly different ways. I want to do service specific strategy (this is the bit I'm good at), but the role im in is very much wider client/ new business/ pitch/ client relationship strategy.