I'm trying to find information about notice periods for an employee taking voluntary redundancy and getting conflicting or confusing answers so thought I would ask here and see what the consensus was or if anyone can point me to the right place to find the answer.
Employee has opted for voluntary redundancy, they have 7 years service, so are entitled to 7 weeks statutory notice (?) Their employment contract states that the employer has to give 'not less than one week for each completed year, up to a maximum of 12 weeks,' (so 7 weeks notice from the employer?) and that the employee has to give 'not less than 4 weeks notice'.
The 'confusing / conflicting' bit is how much notice does that employee have to actually work once they have officially been made redundant. Is it 4 weeks (contractual) or 7 weeks (statutory)?
If they only work their 4 weeks contractual notice, does the employer have to pay them (PILON) for the remaining 3 weeks of statutory notice or only pay the 4 weeks contractual?
I know statutory trumps contractual, when contractual is less than the statutory minimum, but I can't find information about the other way round, i.e. contractual is less than statutory.
Quite happy to let the person work 4 and get paid for 7, they are a great employee, sorry to lose them and don't want to short change them. But also don't want to pay someone money they aren't supposed to receive (and somebody - not me - down the line might decide they have to pay it back!) Also don't want to make them work longer than they have to or get into a situation where they are being paid by two employers, as they have a new job lined up and would be starting it after the 4 weeks contractual notice is over, but the additional 3 weeks of statutory is still running.
Anyone point me in the right direction of guidance or legislation, so I have it to back me up if this gets queried.