Our policy set out the employee’s rights and obligations during their notice period, including not working elsewhere and continuing to work at normal capacity. It also helps protect your business interests at this difficult time and dovetails with our written statement of employment particulars and a number of our other clauses and policies.
Rights and obligations
The primary aim of our Notice Periods Policy is to set out your expectations of a departing employee during their notice period. It’s not unknown for employees to start doing work for their new employer or to take their foot off the gas and think they can do very little until they leave. Our policy clarifies that the employment contract remains in force during the notice period and the employee remain bound by its terms, including their duties of loyalty and confidentiality - so they can’t work elsewhere without your agreement. It also states that they’re expected to continue working at their normal capacity and to uphold the high standards of conduct and performance you expect and that a failure to do so is a disciplinary matter. In return, they continue to receive their full salary and benefits during their notice period.
Protecting business interests
Depending on the employee’s role and whether they’re off to work for a competitor, you may need to take steps to protect your business interests during their notice period, assuming it’s going to be worked. Our policy confirms that you can restrict their job duties, assign them to other duties or vary or withdraw any of their powers or responsibilities. It also states you can restrict their contact with colleagues, clients, customers and suppliers or limit their access to information and resources. If you want to ensure the employee’s work is properly handed over, our policy provides that some of their duties may be passed to other staff during their notice period and they will give such assistance in effecting a smooth and orderly handover as you reasonably require.
Resignation and dismissal
Our policy has provisions covering resignation and dismissal, including confirmation that:
A useful round up
The other aim of our policy is to bring together various provisions relating to the notice period that you have elsewhere in other clauses and policies. What we didn’t want to do was to just repeat all those provisions, so our policy cross refers to: