When employees give notice




The minimum statutory notice an employee must give their employer is one week, but the employment contract can require longer notice. 




Not giving enough notice is a breach of contract, but to succeed in a claim, the employer must show that by giving short notice, the employee caused foreseeable financial loss. The employer must also take reasonable steps to mitigate (in other words, reduce) any losses, for example, sharing duties among remaining staff. A successful claim is more likely if the employee has special skills or was working on a particular assignment and the employer incurred extra costs, for example, engaging a more expensive agency worker to complete a project.




Even if an employee fails to work their full notice, their employer cannot make deductions from their wages without a clear written contract term allowing this. This includes attempts to make employees forfeit holiday pay because they gave short notice.
The term must have been agreed in advance and is usually in the signed employment contract. Otherwise there will be an unlawful deduction from wages (see Chapter 4, page 100): 




Some contracts contain a term purporting to state in advance how much compensation will be paid if the employee fails to work their full notice. This kind of term can sometimes be attacked as a penalty. A penalty is a contract term that aims to punish or deter an employee from breaking the contract, instead of compensating the employer for their loss. Penalty clauses are unlawful (see page 102, Chapter 4).