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Abysmal notice period in IT Co
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Hi All, I am writing this article to draw everyone's attention especially the HR Policy Makers (read HR team) towards uneven and unbecoming approach adopted by the organization with respect to separation or notice period policy. During my entire career span, I have worked in different companies and have gone through notice period ranging from one month to three months after I tendered my resignation.

Notice Period is a crucial professional mandate that every employee has to comply with to ensure convenience to the project or business he/she is associated with. Notice period is meant to ensure proper hand-over/take-over and knowledge transfer. I totally agree with this HR policy. However, these days or may be for quite a long time, I have realized that companies do not follow standard approach towards notice period policy. Some companies have one month, some have two months and some of them have even three months notice period policy. This is a common scenario across industries and sectors however, in IT industry an unusually longer notice period (read 3 months) has become quite frequent and omnipresent.

Personally, I perceive of 3-month long notice period as the high-handedness of the companies. What is more shocking and surprising is the non-standard followed by both the companies and industry alike. I am raising this point deliberately because companies (especially IT companies) want a prospective candidate to join immediately (say 15 days to 1 month) due to project/business need but when it comes to release their own employees, they (read reporting manager and HR) will mandate them to serve full notice period even if it spans for 3 months. To make the situation worse for employees, some companies do not even have a buy-out policy.

I do not hesitate in saying that this is a double-standard approach adopted by the organizations. More often than not, such a long notice period creates hurdles and many a times denial for employees in getting a better job opportunity (be it money, job satisfaction or work culture) as the next company is not willing to wait for 2-3 months. Now a days, this trend has become quite a commonplace. IT companies are advertising job vacancies with a clear condition of shorter notice period (15 days to 1 month at max). Some of them do not even shortlist resumes or prefer to talk to candidates who have considerably longer notice period in their current companies. This is apparently exploitation of workforce at the hands of their employers but there is no one to pay heed to.

Unfortunately, IT/ITES industry do not have an employee union(s) like other industries which protect the interest of the workers. Though we have an industry body NASSCOM but they too do not seem to be interested in doing anything to secure the interest of IT/ITES employees. NASSCOM being the apex autonomous body in the IT/ITES sector can do and ought to do something to address this harassment of employees.

To sum it up, I strongly recommend that companies in a particular industry or sector (especially IT industry) ought to adopt a standard approach in notice period policy. This will not only set a new milestone in the industry but will also make human resource policies more meaningful. With a standard separation policy, it will help companies create a healthy yet competitive environment for themselves as well as for their employees. And, NASSCOM must pay attention towards the plight of the workers.

With that being said I am curious to know your opinion as it was my personal thought that I wanted to share for a long time. Let me see how many of you agree and how many of you disagree with me. Thanks for taking time out and reading this article with patience!