Zchange notice period

Employer can communicate the decision to change the notice period in writing to all the employees.

Employee can reject  in writing to accept the change, or may not respond in writing.

If the factory has IC or Union, they can also take up with employer.

Mr.Kumar Doab has given valid suggestion. You need to move strategically, instead making it 3 months to everybody better to keep one month to the employees in the position of Senior Executive and below and revise the notice period to 3 months to Assitant Manager and above so that the resistance will be less.

In addition to the above it is better to relieve the employee who has decided to move  immediately because that guy may not show that much interest to work and as well as looking at him the other guys will also loose their concentration. In the lower cadre positions you may not be having critical handing overs and criticality in operations etc hence better to continue with one month.

Even for the Assistant Manager and above also don't do it now, better plan 15days before the annual increment period ie., after completion of performance evaluation and before declaration of increments so that one hand you are giving some thing and implementing some thing so the pain will be less. 

Still I suggest that continuing with the resigned employee for longer time is a threat to the organization, distracts the concentration of other employees, the productivity issues also arise.

Regards - kamesh

You can change the notice period only in line with section 9A of the ID Act. Employees then can raise an industrial dispute and matter can go to conciliation. During the conciliation section 33-A comes in to play. You can not change service conditions during the pendency of conciliation proceedings.

You can however negotiate the terms with the Union of workmen and try to bring a negotiated settlement.   

Thank you sir, but I had 1 more question that as per my knowledge  if organization had employed  less than 100 employee  then maximum notice period is 1 month, so can you please advise me on this.

There are N number of companies with 3 months notice period where the total number of manpower is more than thousands.

The agreement between employee and employer supercedes the rules / acts hence have an understanding and clear the issue. One more important thing is that until and unless there is a complaint no statutory / Govt authority intereferes in to the internal / policy  matters of any organization hence the relation ship is more important than any other in the industrial scenario.

Regards - kamesh

The following is limited understanding of the matter.

In case of workmen protected under the Industrial Disputes Act, there is hardly any notice or notice period to leave the company. To terminate them the company needs to give one month notice if employing less than 100 employees or even two months notice employing 100 or more workers.

The change in notice period would amount to a "change in usage" specified in item no.8 and also would amount to "the alteration of an existing rule" specified in item no.9 of the Fourth Schedule to the Industrial Disputes Act. Service conditions specified in the fourth schedule to the Act cannot be changed without following the procedure prescribed under section 9A of the Industrial Disputes Act.

Therefore if the management changes the notice period from 1 month to 3 months by e mail it becomes violation of section 9A of the Industrial Disputes Act.
Usually company thru line management/HR conveys that reliving letter shall be blocked and thus coerces/forces the employee to accept the terms of notice period dictated by company.

This practice is rampant in BPO. IT sector, retail chain etc in which the employees so far have not united or rather have not formed “ body of employees”, although many of them are expressing their anguish at various web portals. One fine day some intelligent trade union may tap this virgin pool. Body of employees need not to be necessarily trade union.

Therefore, such matters are reduced to matter of an understanding, between management and employee. And in many of the cases it may very well be the quickest and easiest.

The employee and the HR/line management should apply their wisdom in each specific case.

As an HR executive you should be able to sense the mood of situation and stick to law than rules/process of the company.

One well informed/ properly advised/ strong willed/ determined employee is enough to give jitters to the company and in turn to line management/HR.

The purpose should be to find a solution suitable to both the parties and remain at peace.

Valuable advice of learned experts/members is sought.

There is no relation of number of employee with the notice period. You can have different set of working conditions with different categories of employees. It is the contract ( appointment letter) or any modification in service conditions by way of union negotiations those would prevail.