Notice Period

[JetBlast]

Good Morning,

I am based in SA and I have been offered a new position as a senior manager. I am reviewing the documents and the notice period is 6 months. Is this usual please? My current position (manager) is 4 weeks. 6 months seems quite excessive.

Thanks

[Marisawright]

That is excessive.  However, are they offering you relocation expenses?  If so, that may be the reason.

[LouDYorkie]

Really it depends on what you actually do...if you could go to a competitor, a six month notice period is a common way of 1. Dissuading you / the competitor and 2. Preventing you making decisions in your old/new job based on knowledge of your previous / next job.

 

Notice period can be negotiated in the same way as any other part of a contract.

 

NB. If the job you are going into falls under an award then the notice period in your contract cannot be less favourable. However, it is unlikely a Senior Manager will fall under an Award.

 

[Marisawright]

32 minutes ago, LouDYorkie said:

Really it depends on what you actually do...if you could go to a competitor, a six month notice period is a common way of 1. Dissuading you / the competitor and 2. Preventing you making decisions in your old/new job based on knowledge of your previous / next job.

That's interesting, I had never heard of that.   I know it's common to have a six-month "no competition" clause - which means you can't go to work for a competitor within six months of leaving.  

[VERYSTORMY]

55 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

That's interesting, I had never heard of that.   I know it's common to have a six-month "no competition" clause - which means you can't go to work for a competitor within six months of leaving.  

It is just another way of chieving the same thing. Normally, when there is a long notice period, how it works in reality is, notice goes in the company put you on garden leave for six months. 

[Jon the Hat]

 

10 hours ago, JetBlast said:

Good Morning,

I am based in SA and I have been offered a new position as a senior manager. I am reviewing the documents and the notice period is 6 months. Is this usual please? My current position (manager) is 4 weeks. 6 months seems quite excessive.

Thanks

Sounds a lot to me.  I work for an ASX listed company in the UK, and they used to do 6 months at director level, but reduced to 3 months a number of years ago.  You would need to be very senior exec to get 6 months.

[VERYSTORMY]

10 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

 

Sounds a lot to me.  I work for an ASX listed company in the UK, and they used to do 6 months at director level, but reduced to 3 months a number of years ago.  You would need to be very senior exec to get 6 months.

Not necessarily. I worked on a project in Oz where the lowest rated new grad was put on six month notice period. Many were on 12 month. It would be served on garden leave. The reason was the project was highly sensitive. The science brand new and the company right,y needed some protection against that leaking out. None of is really minded as we just thought, well, I get a years pay on full pay on holiday. 

[LobsterMobster]

13 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Sounds a lot to me.  I work for an ASX listed company in the UK, and they used to do 6 months at director level, but reduced to 3 months a number of years ago.  You would need to be very senior exec to get 6 months.

I once worked for the London branch of a global company where all employees were on at least 3 months' notice. At least half of them were low-level clerical staff. We weren't working on anything top secret - they had a massive staff retention problem! Sadly for the MD, plenty of other employers were willing to wait 3 months for good workers, and his cunning plan didn't put them off recruiting his staff. 

I'd be a bit suspicious of long notice periods for this reason, although I think OP will be ok as it's a 'senior manager' role.

Incidentally, when I was on 6 months' notice (at a different company) I had to work my notice period. So you won't automatically get an extra 26 weeks of paid leave in every role...

Edited February 6, 2020 by LobsterMobster

[Collie]

On 06/02/2020 at 05:50, JetBlast said:

Good Morning,

I am based in SA and I have been offered a new position as a senior manager. I am reviewing the documents and the notice period is 6 months. Is this usual please? My current position (manager) is 4 weeks. 6 months seems quite excessive.

Thanks

Is it 6 months both ways?

For most white collar roles, 1 month is the norm.  As you get more senior, it would be 3 months.

For 6 months, I would expect it to be a C suite role.

Is it something you can negotiate down?

At least make sure it is paid notice.

Also, someone mentioned non-compete clauses.  They are rarely enforceable and have been struck out by the courts on many occasions (a recent example is the Ryanair v Peter Bellew case)

[Ausvisitor]

The UK big 4 companies use 3 or 6 month notice periods for anyone at manager level or above to dissuade moving straight to the client after completing a role.

 

AUS law might be different, but in the UK non compete clauses are heinously difficult to enforce on an employee (as you could effectively be denying them the right to work if they can prove the only job they could have got was going to be a competing one) so instead they use notice periods which are much easier to enforce (and by the time you take into account legal costs in enforcement of a non compete are usually cheaper)

[JetBlast]

Thanks to all those whole replied. In the end I didn't take the job. There were other things in the contract and my gut was telling me not to take the job.