What’s with the notice period?

I resigned from one employer to join a new company in early 2019 and had to serve a contractual 3 month notice period. That’s a long time! 90 days, 2160 hours of waiting to leave.

Thankfully, in my situation I was leaving a great organisation and an even greater boss so I was treated very well during the process. The whole situation got me thinking about the relevance of these notice periods and whether companies should do away with them altogether.

So the purpose of a notice period is to allow the employer time to react and mitigate the consequences of the employee’s departure. Sounds fair on paper I think. In my case 3 months would give adequate time for a replacement to be found and for me to handover or introduce the work to the newbie. In reality because said replacement also needed to serve notice this never happened anyway.

I know from contacts in other countries that people resign immediately, with a 2 week notice period being seen as reasonable but not obligatory. Those companies generally continue as going concerns after the employee resigns and they still have the same challenges with regards to replacing them. So I just can’t reconcile in my mind why some organizations would insist on a 90 day notice. I have even heard of employees contractually agreeing to a 6 month notice period. That’s normal apparently.

My take is that companies should abandon these long notice periods for employees. Instead they should aim to build a system and talent pipeline such that there is minimal disruption when one employee leaves. Typically if a person has been actively searching for another job they probably have not been that focused on their work anyway. And unless extremely disciplined it is difficult for most employees to maintain their enthusiasm for their current jobs when greener pastures are around the corner. Towards the end of the notice period the employee stops receiving new work anyway as this is briefed onto those employees that are remaining.

Finally, it is ironic that when employees are terminated for whatever reason, suddenly it is perfectly reasonable for them to leave immediately. Just not reasonable for them to leave immediately if they leave on their own. Let them go!