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My current company has 3 months notice period and my friend has already served a month after her resignation. Now she has got a Govt. offer where she has to report there in a week.

Is there any rule/policy that an employer should relieve an employee even before serving the complete notice period if he/she gets a Govt. job within the notice period?

Please help me regarding this concern.

IDrinkandIKnowThings
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user50979
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  • Check your employment contract and local labor laws. Also what country are you in? This is pretty hard to answer without knowing what country as everywhere is slightly different. – enderland May 25 '16 at 12:02
  • This really is a legal question, which is off topic here. Does she have a contract that specifies the notice period? If not, she's probably free to go (assuming US) – Magisch May 25 '16 at 12:02
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    What country is this? Usually there are no specific exceptions made for a government job versus any other. When your friend got the government offer, she should have been clear that she still had two months left in her notice period. – David K May 25 '16 at 12:03
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    Agree with @davidk -- Government or not, your friend should tell the new employer they need to finish the notice period and set the starting date for the new job appropriately – keshlam May 25 '16 at 12:14
  • She should really check with an employment lawyer in her jurisdiction and show that lawyer her contract. Assuming this is in the US, my guess is that it should be easy to break the notice period, government job or not, but that is just a layman guess on my part. Just don't expect any of us to tell you it's ok to break it, we don't know nearly enough about her situation. She could be an uneasily replaceable heart surgeon with many ongoing patients for all we know. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/ask-the-headhunter-why-its-risky-to-give-notice-when-you-quit/ – Stephan Branczyk May 25 '16 at 12:52
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    @StephanBranczyk The mention of "relieving" would strongly imply India to me... – Philip Kendall May 25 '16 at 13:06
  • @PhilipKendall, Your guess is probably right. – Stephan Branczyk May 25 '16 at 13:21
  • Is this some sort of required government service like some countries require of people or regular employment? – Myles May 25 '16 at 14:06
  • Possible duplicate of What is a relieving letter? What are the consequences of not having one? – IDrinkandIKnowThings May 25 '16 at 15:45
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    The obvious people to ask here are the new government employers. Get your friend to contact them, tell them her situation. If there is a way to speed things up they will know. – DJClayworth May 25 '16 at 16:57
  • @DJClayworth: And there's a good chance that there might be a special law, because in a country where 3 months notice is common new employers usually expect you to start in 3 months time as well. – gnasher729 May 26 '16 at 08:22

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In general, no. A notice period is a notice period and, unless explicitly specified, your friend needs to honour their notice period. They should not have accepted another job, government or otherwise, which had a start date before the end of their notice period.

Philip Kendall
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  • I think we should beware of assuming that practices which are normal in Western nations are also normal in India. – DJClayworth May 26 '16 at 14:27