Can an employee leave without giving notice

My employee has resigned, what next?

If an employee has resigned from their role, you should firstly check the employee’s contract of employment to establish their notice period. This is also known as a contractual notice, which your employee is obliged to give. You should ascertain your employee’s intention of serving their notice.

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We don’t have a contract of employment, what should the notice period be?

If there is no contract of employment in place, or the contract does not contain any notice provisions, then under the Employment Rights Act, the default position after one month of employment is for the employee to provide statutory notice of one week. 

 

If they do, these are your options:

 

  1. You can file a claim for any losses due to the breach of contract.
  2. On the contract of employment, if you included a garden leave clause, you can obtain an injunction forcing them to take garden leave for the duration of their notice period.
  3. You can obtain an injunction requiring them to serve their notice.

My employee has left without notice, what are my options?

If your employee has left without serving their notice period, you need to decide whether you want to take legal action against them.

Due to these legal options being costly, both financially and in terms of time, we’d only recommend that companies take legal action if it is a senior member of staff leaving, or someone in a sales role, which could have a financial impact on the business.

When an employee chooses to leave, it means that they no longer want to work for your company. Forcing them to reluctantly serve their notice period will only have a negative impact on the rest of your employees, and they are unlikely to be productive during this period. There’s also a risk that they could steal or sabotage company information, so it’s important to weigh the risks -v- benefits.

Now is a good opportunity to revisit your contracts of employment to ensure that the necessary notice provisions are included to protect your business.

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