Notice Period

[Eliza121]

I have a question on working your notice period.

I have been with my current employer for just over a year, and apparently my notice period is 12 weeks, which seems excessive to me. I'm not management, I work in a team of 8 people and if I left tomorrow it wouldn't make a difference as we all work from the same inbox and I don't have any projects that I deal with on my own. So my question is this, if I were to hand my notice in, would I have to work the full 12 weeks?

Probably. You could hand in your notice and then use any holidays you've accrued.

I have left a job when I had been there just over a year and given 1 weeks notice. They were not a good employer though.

You can negotiate your notice period down, in particular if there are no business critical projects that will fall apart when you leave. I would simply speak to the manager and ask to reduce the notice to one month, which is more appropriate after quite a short employment.

Your notice period would have been in your contract, so you should have been aware

You could speak to work and see if they will agree to an earlier leave date

Contractually yes. Practically they may not want someone who is leaving kicking around for the full 3 months. But I’ve thought that in the past and still been made to work to the end.

Is it the sort of job that you do a handover of where you’re up to on projects and would then not have anything to do. Or is it the sort of job where you undertake regular tasks that would still need to be done and so they could still make use of you?

Ultimately though - yes, you’d still be required to serve your notice if they wanted you to.

Where I worked it stated in the contract that you could not take holiday within your notice period.

Legally they can't force you to work.

You can try to negotiate a shorter period. They don't really have any comeback if you leave early without their agreement. Might reflect it in the reference.

Thank you, all!
It is in my contract and I'm usually a stickler for abiding by the rules work wise. But my role in the company is one that is also done by a team of others. It's very much a role where I it doesn't matter who has been dealing with something up until that point, one of us can step in and pick it up easily.
And 12 weeks seems very excessive, but I know every company is different .

Did you not read contract before you signed it and took this into consideration when looking ti leave?

It's merely a question @craigth162 thank you for the constructive feedback

www.acas.org.uk/notice-periods/notice-when-resigning

If they sacked you, do you think they should pay you the notice period they state in the contract?

when you resign you can always ask if you can go earlier

My work has 3 months notice period, they used to be very strict about it but then a couple of people caused a fuss and left after 1 months notice so they've kind of given up on the "threat" of court proceedings and only try to get people to stay if they're managers or essential sales staff.

According to one of the guys who caused a fuss, your employer cannot make you work a long notice period if it prevents you from starting a new job on time.

That's the opposite where I work. They insist you use all holidays before you leave so they don't have to pay you for them, which they'll only do with exec director sign off (charity sector).