How Can You Reduce Your notice Period?

By Nicki Wilson, Genie Recruitment

You may have finally landed your dream role, but they want you to join them quickly. You still have a month, even two months to serve before you can leave your current employer. There are steps you can take to negotiate the notice period. So don’t fret, here’s some handy tips to begin the process!

Firstly, write your resignation letter (tips on resigning can be found here https://www.raemona.com/post/how-to-resign-well )

If you are prepared, you are likely to have all your ducks in a row ready to make that often quite anxious decision to hand your notice in. At this point it is also worth to double check your contract and even consult some of your trusted colleagues / ex colleagues who may have negotiated a notice period with the company before. It will give you strength and perhaps some insight into best practice of what to do.

Arrange a meeting with HR / your manager

Get ready for an open discussion, always remaining level-headed even if you cannot wait to run out of the door. It will only assist you in the process if you remain pragmatic until the end. I personally had a terrible time with a previous employer where they made me serve garden leave in the office without a laptop or any materials, a whole month just sat there… doing nothing! Let’s just say I read a lot of books/magazines and listened in to all the conversations ready to report back to my new employer. Bit silly n their part and that is why garden leave is a common practice!

Garden leave

Typically, an option when you are moving to a competitor, a company with a similar industry or even just when you are always dealing with confidential information. Usually on garden leave you cannot work for another company, but it is worth discussing with your employer, as if they must pay you to sit at home or you are still using up a precious visa allocation it could be worth that chat to say you are happy to leave immediately! Just be ready for a reduction in your end final salary packet.

Options that might be on the table…

Holiday allowance

Double check how much is left as this could be used to leave early; a company will be more inclined to give the holiday entitlement over the actual holiday allowance pay. So do some quick maths and you may be surprised that this could reduce your notice period substantially.

Buy Out

One of the most common practices upon resigning. Often either taken out of your end of service or we have even seen the new employer assisting here in helping the buyout. Worth a conversion especially if they want you to join speedily.

If this is an option, ensure you have all your calculations accurate and you are ready to go into the discussion with full notes and a potential offer you are comfortable with. The ideal is to equate your rate per day X multiplied by the number of days less you want to work as a guideline. However, if your job role is very valuable to the business there may be other ideas in mind from your current employer. So be ready for a balloon figure. Keep in mind the end goal though, you may have a better package on the table, a better culture and maybe even the current workplace is just worth paying whatever to get out!

Whatever you get decided ensure any agreement is done in writing either via a formal email or a signed letter once something has been agreed.