employee leaving the organisation during probation

payal (Querist) 24 August 2013 This query is : Resolved
One of our employee wants to leave the job. He has been with us for 2 months now and is in probation period. I have following questions to ask:

1. Under his offer letter he is supposed to provide notice for 1 month while in appointment letter it is 2 months. Which one would apply in such a situation? (Employee is arguing that since he joined the job on the basis of terms and considerations mentioned in offer letter he would serve the notice for 1 month.)

2. In his offer letter a clause is mentioned as per which "he commits to work with us for a period of 2 years" but the same is not there in his appointment letter. Since no training was given to him, he says that he cannot be bound to stay back. Does this bond period has any validity? ( it is given in his offer letter that if he leaves the company before the stipulated period , the monthly deductions from his salary would not be given to him He agrees to this and says he does not want this amount.)

3. He is stating that he has got admission in some prestigious college and can not continue working with but he is not presenting any admission slips. can we force him to present his admission slips?

4. Company doesnt want to relieve him what can we do in such case?

Thanks in advance.

Follow Query

Report Abuse

Guest (Expert) 24 August 2013
Dear Payal,

If company's documents, in themselves, are contradictory, company has no stand to take. In that case whatever terms are favourable to the employee would have to be made applicable. Even the terms stating that he would not be given whatever deductions have been made out of his salary are void.

So, your organisation need to get your appointment/ service related documents reviewed on priority basis from some services law expert. Otherwise, the company would have to face number of legal problems in near future, besides the spread of indiscipline of abrupt desertion/ absenteeism any time on the sweet will of the employee due to legal flaws in the company's documents, thereby badly affecting the productivity of the company.

payal (Querist) 24 August 2013
Thanks Mr. Dhingra for your kind reply.

The problem is that in past many employees from the same department have left jobs very frequently and management wants this employee to stay. Can he not be forced to stay back?

Nadeem Qureshi (Expert) 24 August 2013
Dear Payal
nobody can use force to stay or not left the company. it is employee right to left the company when he.she wants.

payal (Querist) 24 August 2013
does his agreement to work for atleast 2 years has no significance?

Guest (Expert) 24 August 2013
You cannot force the employee to stay on the basis of your own defective documents. It is his sincere attempt is he has issued a resignation notice, but even if he decides to leave the company unawares without even issuing a notice, your company cannot enforce the terms on the basis of company's defective documents. Better concentrate on revision of the documents to make them legally sound, so that no employee dares to leave company without complying the prescribed and legally perfect terms.

Guest (Expert) 24 August 2013
The terms cannot be one-sided and so rigid to look like the company is trying to employ bonded labour. Agreement of 2 years has no relevance, if that does not contain options for the employees also to leave the organisation within that period, like resignation on reasonable compensation to the company within that period.