Three months is the typical notice period for tech workers and other highly-skilled jobs. One month is the legal minimum in Sweden, and certainly several other countries. Of course it goes both ways, in fact it's even more difficult for the employer to get rid of an employee. An employee doesn't need a reason to resign, an employer needs a valid reason to fire an employee, in addition to observing the notice period.

To complete the picture, it's necessary to say that probation periods exist. Employees may be initially hired on probation (typical for fresh graduates), which has a shorter notice period, and either side may unilaterally decide not to continue past probation. That is, an employer unhappy with a probation employee doesn't need additional legal grounds to say "we're not proceeding with full employment after the probation period is over".

Of course if you have good reasons to stop working, there are good options. If it's stress or similar mental health issues, you can resign and spend your notice period on sick leave. If your employer assaults you or just stops paying, or otherwise grossly neglects their duties as an employer, you're legally entitled to quit immediately.

If you don't respect your notice period they'll remove your salary over the missed time from that final payment. So in that case they'd remove 3-month salary. Sometimes it goes into the negative, and some companies actually send a bill, but there's basically no consequence for ignoring it. Usually companies don't push the matter.

There are federal laws that limit this, typically applied to larger employers making entire business lines redundant (closing a factory, etc). State laws very, some with zero extra protection, some with a bit more, but AFAIK none with European-style rules.

In professional jobs, it's traditional for an employee to give 2+ weeks notice. Most employees will try to stay long enough for a reasonable transition - depending on position/project status, that could be 2 weeks or a month or two.

It's traditional for employers to give 2+ weeks severance. Most white-collar employers have periods that start at 2 weeks and grow with tenure. Including benefits is hit or miss, and a HUGE issue because health insurance/care in the US is so expensive.

I think what you are thinking about is the court almost certainly won't order you to go back to work after you quit.

Just like they have also ruled that mandatory Jury duty is not in violation of the 13th amendment either. Funny how the system protects and perpetuates itself.

But with respect to your point, I am nearly 100% sure that it is not the case that employers can use financial penalties to enforce such a contract. Anything you are paid as wages is pretty much untouchable after it is paid out, unless it was paid in mistake or you intentionally damaged the company or something. The best the company can do is withhold potential future earnings or bonuses, or take back conditional non-wage payments like bonuses within a certain window of time.

This is part of why golden parachutes exist. Your contract has very generous severance clauses which award you lots of money if you follow a certain procedures for leaving, which involves advance notice and such. Fail to follow that and your paycheck just stops the day you walk off. So there are incentives, but they can't go after your already earned wages, paid or still due to you.

That's pretty much what I meant although, as noted in another comment, I assume there are cases where they would try to claw back relocation or signing bonuses. Also, of course, things like RSU vesting.

>they can't go after your already earned wages, paid or still due to you.

Certainly, and depending on how paid time off accrues, anything earned there--which is one of the drivers with "unlimited" PTO because that's not owed when you leave.

Oh, I agree. But 3 months seems crazy to me. If I have an open position and it isn't filled in ~4-6 weeks, it often gets given to some other team (on the basis that if I really needed that position filled, I'd do so). I can't plan hiring over that timeframe.

And when hiring employees in India, we've had them claim a 2-month resignation period, but they just end up using that time to find some other opportunity on the previous employer's time. It's a real mess.

If you're in a culture (locality + industry) where a position can be filled in 4 weeks, that's one thing. If you're in a culture where every experienced person has 3 months of notice, then nobody would take your inability to fill a position within weeks to mean that you don't really need it.

I have some experience with part-time contracting with US customers. Seeing how quickly people can join or leave there is certainly a culture shock!

We have a bunch of employees in Europe and everyone involved except the very marginal employees sees this situation as strongly negative (and, in fact, an argument to not hire in Europe at all).

I don't need my 3 months now. They might be useful if my employer axes a whole department. They're useful for people with family commitments giving them less mobility.

What you might not realise is that these three months would be the default legal position in case of disagreement. If you want to leave earlier and the employer agrees, you can usually leave earlier, too (with them being off the financial hook).

It wasn't a problem. I was on good terms with the previous company (I'm still getting invited to their anniversary parties and stuff like that), so there was no issue in working something out.

Also, remember that ~6 weeks of vacation per year is common outside the US, so often it boils down to taking your remaining vacation. (Though I think you need to be careful with taxes and other regulations if the contracts overlap.)

I’m senior enough that I give at least a month, often more, and this made me realize that I’ve been perhaps overly generous.

I haven't worked much on regular job agreements (been contracting or "contracting" most of my life), but generally if you want to quit you go to your boss and say "hey, I wanna quit" and you negotiate when, regardless of the default requirements (which only come into play if either side doesn't agree). There's no business in keeping an unproductive employee around for 3 months.

You can still quit if both parties agree. I've done it before.

The clause is there to avoid this type of scenario where a key employee just says fuck it and leave.

It works both ways. So a company can say fuck it and fire you just because they want to.

It's a fantastic system. It can be exploited, but usually works really well for employees and it gives you a huge safety net you can (usually) rely on.

"Can't", right? Otherwise it sounds like American at-will employment.

The law mandates that the firing notice period cannot be shorter than the resignation notice period.

If they are at the "fuck it" point, what's going to force them to be useful and productive during the forced 3 month notice period?

Nothing - beyond professionalism. It is common for knowledge transfer to happen in this time, and any outstanding vacation days are usually taken at this time.

There's a huge cultural difference between US and Europe (rest of world?) when it comes to going to work after serving notice. It appears the employer/employee relationship is more adversarial, so much so that the employee is not trusted/expected to do the right thing after being fired (or after they quit) - the whole "immediately getting escorted out of the building by security" is unheard of in Europe.

If you reach that you just put in the notice, take whatever vacations you have and then put in sick leave.

But 3 months notice is used for, so the company can hire a replacement for you, and you can help train him, and transfer knowledge.

A lot of people reading this site work in companies that have huge teams, but most people in IT I know from EU (where I live) are one or two person IT teams. 3 or 4 person team is considered almost medium sized.

In such situations you need yo hand of your task responsibly.

And that the one thing that will get you burned, if you leave your previous employer hanging.

You usually don't get stuck with duds because there's a probationary period of (max.) 6 months in the beginning in which these protections are not in place.

Also (after the probationary period) the company needs a legal reason to fire you. If they wanna fire you for incompetence oder insubordination they need to have reprimanded you at least once officially, in written form. Only after getting a 2nd reprimand for the SAME THING can they act on it. Meaning if you told the boss to go fuck themselves once and shown up drunk to work once they wouldn't have legal grounds to fire you and if they did you'd drag their ass to labour court and get some kind of compensation.

Turning up drunk to a meeting is enough to start disciplinary procedures -- HR handle this, and work out how to proceed. (On [1], I think they would have been proceeding through the "Misconduct" section, second chance etc.)

Rotating the backup tapes, then carrying said tapes about 1km to the other building to put in the safe, was part of the job, but he was watched while he did it.

Stopping at a bar along the way was not fine.

Being oblivious to the point that a manager was able to take the bag containing the tapes from the bar back to the office was not fine.

Coming back to the office (drunk) and not realizing what had happened was not fine.

This was gross misconduct, and led to immediate dismissal.

https://www.gov.uk/dismiss-staff/dismissals-on-capability-or...

Yes. Also if you just refuse to do any work.

In theory, the business could sue an ex-employee who just left for damages caused by the breach of contract, but in the real world it would be pretty much impossible to prove that the damages were caused by the employee leaving. In most cases it's simply considered a dick move, and you'll end up with a hole in your CV as you won't ever get a decent reference if you just get up and leave.

> Does this 3 month period apply in reverse (employer can't fire employees without a full 3 month warning)?

Usually yes. And unlike the situation above, employees could probably drag the employer to court for it, unless the employee did something illegal or completely irresponsible during working hours.

Yes (in France at least) it is on both sides, unless both sides agree to shorten it

> face some sort of repercussions (financial, I assume)?

I'm speaking for France. This is a tricky subject, you almost can't get any repercussion. But it can sucks, like the employer can refuse to fire you and suspend your contract, in the mean time, you are not paid but are not allowed to work for someone else.

If you don't work your notice period, you obviously won't be paid for it, and any reference will state that you broke your contract.

(Unless your employer asks that you don't come into work any more. This is called "gardening leave" in Britain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave , and it's normal in some industries and circumstances.)

It's certainly a crushing feeling to be chained to a job. Even worse are these stupid 2 weeks or unimaginable 3 months notice. As everyone says- you'll never get notice you're being fired. It'll be quick like a mob hit.

In Europe you will. Or you’ll be sent home with the respective 3 months in salary anyway, but generally you work your 3 months.

To be fair, I’ve never seen a notice period longer than a month.

"We didn't pay for your relocation to X just so that you could change jobs after a few months."

Two weeks notice is a courtesy.

The much maligned PIP is often a hint that you're going to be let go. Rarely is there a "you're being let go today, pack your desk" unless there is cause (the one time I saw it was because someone was using their desktop support credentials to snoop on the CIO's computer - that one they weren't even given the pack your desk) or the company is in trouble (and in which case, things like the WARN period kick in).

So, while we don't have 3 months notice in the US, we certainly have similar ways to get stuck.

Of course.

Different notice periods for employers and employees would be outright illegal in most of Europe.

AFAIK more common is "lower notice period for employers is illegal".

See my comment below.

Do you have any sources on the legality of different notice periods in Europe?

There are three types of employment laws herearound:

- Statutes can be changed freely if both agree

- They can be changed only to the employees advantage. For example: minimum vacation days are 20 days. A contract can stipulate 30 days, but not 10, or 15 days

- Some statutes cannot be changed at all.

I can obviously not speak for all of Europe (plus INAL, etc), but would assume that it's comparable in most of Europe, or even more stringent in terms of employee protection. Employee laws here are quite liberal compared to other European countries.

Switzerland, default rules regarding termination (if I recall correctly). * first month of work, 0 second notice * rest of the first year of work, 1 month notice * second year of work, 2 months notice * years after third, 3 months notice

Impossible to terminate: pregnant women, before and also during the legal maternity leave. Common termination is the day upon returning to the office.

Personnel called up for the army or civil defence. People on a fixed contract.

Employer must give notice but may be without reasons. Without reasons often leads to lawsuits, because terminated will claim one of the illegal (discrimination etc) reasons applies. Still cost of a lawsuit is normally not prohibitive.

In case of critical financial issue termination maybe shorter (mass-layoffs).

Penalty from employee side seems to be monthly wage, so in this case 3 month salary. Ofc, seeing how company is probably doing I wouldn't be too worried of them coming after him...

Is it the case?

Most large US companies also have a policy of not giving references beyond answering if the person worked there for the time claimed in the position claimed.

There are a number of benefits to full time employment that good engineers appreciate. Healthcare (in the US), known reliable income (this can be a big factor for financing a house mortgage/car), various other benefits (I get massage credit, dental, vision/glasses, acupuncture, physiotherapy). The biggest for me is just avoiding the stress of feast or famine, managing business/taxes, etc..

First of all, you get benefits as a full-time employee that contractors don't get, like healthcare, disability insurance, and paid time off. (This all mostly boils down to money of course.)

Probably more importantly, yes, a company can in general simply tell you your services are no longer needed one morning. However, in reality, absent either company downsizing or a documented performance issue, that is unlikely to happen out of the blue. Whereas not renewing a contract at the end of some project is commonplace.

Employee status vs. independent contractors is actually something of a political football at the moment as contractors include both the stereotypical gig economy workers and freelance writers who want to freelance as well as contractors of other sorts.

Looking at peers who struck out on their own, you can make good money as a contractor, but you typically need to be top of your profession and able to command massive fees. And like any business owner, the pressure to always have too much work usually ruins any chance at using the money for longer, more extravagant vacations.

Handing in your notice to leave is something the employer cannot reject. Depending on circumstances you might try to resign first. Sometimes you may be "asked to resign"[0] and made a nice offer to encourage you to do so, offer will almost always have an NDA attached to it.

[0] this can be preferable to the company as it can be quieter than sacking you

> This guy(gal?) is really required to submit 3 months notice or face some sort of repercussions (financial, I assume)?

Yes. The worst they can do is take you to court for breach of contract though. That can be expensive and embarrassing for both parties so unless they are whiter than white[1] or bitter enough companies often don't bother.

Potentially a big risk to take though. And in an industry that is hardly free from nepotism, you probably don't want the reputation of being someone who walked that way.

Three months is most common in skilled jobs, one month otherwise. In retail work and other low-skilled professions two weeks is not uncommon, though here people often do just walk away as the hassle of chasing them for breach of contract is massively not worth it.

[1] i.e. there is nothing you can say on public record that looks bad for them going forward

> Does this 3 month period apply in reverse (employer can't fire employees without a full 3 month warning)?

Yes. What usually happens if they want to have you gone without notice and don't want to make you an offer to resign "amicably" is that they put you on gardening leave. You are still employed and paid for the notice period but are told to stay home. They can't stop you looking for new work[2] as long as you don't do it "on their time"[3] but you can't start new work without resigning and them accepting that resignation until the end of notice period without the same risks as if you had just walked out without notice yourself[4].

Gardening leave can also happen when you hand in your notice, though if you want to leave and the company wants you to leave then they'll just agree to waive the notice period.

[2] Some contracts have clauses that say otherwise, those clauses are not legally enforcible. Some even have clauses saying you have to actively look for new work, these too are not legally enforceable. [3] Which is impossible for them to prove unless perhaps they have you check-in regularly while you garden. [4] Though they are likely accept the resignation as at that point they can stop paying you for the notice period, unless you are going to work for a competitor, or they otherwise feel like being dicks about it.

I don't know where the OP is located but he should double-check his contract. The first time I heard of the three month period I was reluctant, until I realised it didn't apply to me.