Company policy requires you to declare job interviews

[ASDnocareer]

I work in financial services (junior role) and our company policy says we have to declare and give advance notice when going for an interview at another FS firm.

Is this typical? I don’t want my manager to know but can’t risk not declaring and getting sanctioned

I’ve worked at other FS companies and none were strict enough to have such a policy.

I really don’t feel comfortable my manager finding out because will they then treat me worse once they know I’m jobhunting

Bizarre. I’ve never heard of this before. What would being ‘sanctioned’ involve?

What is the precise wording?

Why? So they can fire you for disloyalty? This is shockingly poor behaviour. Not a good employer.

Pretend you didn't see it

I don’t actually know but I’m scared to break policy in case it results in termination or something. & then what if it goes on my record / reference which could jeopardise working with other companies in this industry

is this policy in your contract?

what is the exact wording?

Every year we have to confirm we have read company policy, and agree to xyz terms. I have been here for few years so don’t think I could risk that

Again - what is the exact wording???

Do they actually give references or just confirm dates of work? Most FS places don’t give more than confirmation.

I’ve never heard of such a policy, but it’s been over a decade since I was perm.

It is probably something related to competition and confidentiality or whatever the current jargon is about not spilling the dirt from one company to another.

However I can't see a judge in the land ruling that a person - whatever level of seniority they may be - is risking those things simply by attending a legitimate and perfectly normal job interview.

It feels like one of those ideas that started out as an off the cuff comment somewhere, that snowballed out of control into this end result. But echoing other pp, we need the exact wording from the policy to be surer.

I don’t actually know, I would think that it’s a formal/ impersonal reference so in most cases only confirming dates worked but then I would presume they would have to mention if someone had breached policy. It’s written by HR not line managers personally

I wonder what would happen if someone interviewed at new place but didn’t declare it, offered new job so resign from current role but didn’t actually declare that they had a new role at all/ claimed they’re still jobhunting

Where I work has this policy (public sector). In our case, it’s for business continuity.

It’s something to do with specialist roles that need specialist qualifications. I’d imagine the finance sector to be similar in that respect.

The more notice the company has that one of their staff may be leaving, the better prepared they can be to get someone else in and get them trained up, minimising time wasted with a vacant post and additional burden on remaining employees.

It can be a double-edged sword though. It can be taken either way. No employer can stop you looking for another job but they might try to encourage you to stay.... or not. It could be a launching-pad to negotiate better pay, conditions, hours, etc.

Whether you tell them or not, they’ll become aware as soon as job references are requested from your potential future employer so, in the grand scheme of things, you might as well be up front about it.

Our place has an informal chat about why you’re looking for another job. It’s purely statistical - if loads of people start leaving for the same reasons then they might look at policy and change it.

Unless you are in an FCA "controlled role" (and you will know if you are), this is not a legally enforceable policy as it constitutes a restriction on your freedom to seek other employment. They will know that, and if it ever comes up (for example, when you hand in your notice), you should smile sweetly and let them know that you checked, and the FCA regulations don't require disclosure of interviews for someone in your role.

That said, if you are interviewing on company time, you can get into trouble, ditto if there is any suspicion that you have divulged confidential company info. Book your interviews outside of work hours, and be professional about what you share about your current company, and you should be fine.

It’s really not enforceable, just go and if questioned, just explain it as an ‘at large’ chat. Or book annual leave, as no one can determine what you do on a day off.

Great response!

if you are worried about consequences, I’d bring it up with HR and ask what they would be. As others have said, legally there can’t be any consequences, so HR will have to say this.

Is it because they don’t want employees having numerous interviews on their time? I always told my employer. How times have changed.

Ignore it.
Completely unreasonable.
If this was challenged at Tribunal it’d probably be ruled as such.

If you’re worried about repercussions then I think that your best bet is to declare the interview once you’ve got the job. So, on the day you are offered the job subject to reference send an email to your line manager “As per x policy, i am just notifying you that I am interviewing for y role at z company’

That way you have notified them, just not immediately.

is this even legal?

I've been in more or less continuous employment since the late 80s and have never told my current employer that I was going to interviews. I just booked time off to go.

@GasperyJacquesRoberts With lots of interviews, that’s a lot of leave. Not sure how teachers book time off for example. Employees are allowed time off for interviews but the employer expects to know. Maybe this is just public sector. A lot of leave could be used up for 2 day interviews!

I work in HR in such an establishment.

It would be gross misconduct to not declare it - basically if you are looking for other jobs we would have to put some staff who work in certain roles and have access to critical information on restricted duties so that they couldn’t trade secrets with other organisations. It doesn’t apply to all staff, and we don’t care if people are applying for jobs as that’s a totally normal thing.

Luckily I've never had to do 2-day interviews and, frankly, I'm not sure I'd ever want to pursue employment with a company that insisted on that kind of thing. I'd certainly not do that without being paid for my time.

If I'm currently employed at company A then it doesn't seem reasonable to expect them to pay me to go and have an interview at company B so I take that time off as leave. That way I don't see I have any obligation to tell company A what I'm doing as it's none of their business.

Sure, they may want to know, but I don't see I have any obligation to tell them any more than while I may want to know that my employer is considering redundancies, they're not obliged to tell me until it's pretty much decided.

"Even though we entrust our staff with corporate secrets, we don't trust our staff with corporate secrets."

What a weird position.

Had you had this policy upheld at tribunal though? I’m not a lawyer but I am a fairly senior person at a large FS firm, and my best guess is that any UK employment tribunal would consider it an unfair restriction of trade.

If you want people to not take secrets with them, that’s what long notice periods and gardening leave are for. This policy sounds like it’s just an attempt to do that on the cheap.

American FS firms often have this kind of thing as a firm wide policy, in the full knowledge that while it might be fine in the US it’s not enforceable in the UK. They don’t tell their UK staff that though!

ETA: responded to wrong post