What is Notice period?

Definition

A notice period is the time between somebody giving or receiving notice and their last working day. In India it comes from the contract, from standing orders where they apply, and from statute in the case of retrenchment.

How it works

There is no single statutory notice period covering all Indian employees. Thirty days for confirmed staff and a shorter period during probation is the common private-sector contract, but where a statutory requirement applies it sets a floor that the contract cannot go below.

What it means in India

Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 requires one month written notice stating the reasons, or wages in lieu, for the retrenchment of a workman with not less than one year of continuous service. Certified standing orders under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act 1946 govern where they apply. An asymmetric clause requiring three months from the employee while allowing immediate termination by the employer tends to be read against the employer who drafted it.

What people get wrong

• Not issuing a resignation acceptance letter, so the employee counts notice from their letter and the company counts from somewhere else.
• Waiving notice verbally and then recovering it in the settlement.
• Withholding a relieving letter over an unserved notice period instead of recovering the shortfall lawfully from the settlement.

Work out your own number

The arithmetic on this page is easier to check against a real salary than to follow in prose, so there is a free page that does it for you. No sign-up.

Terms this one depends on

More on employment and exit

Where this shows up in practice

Almost everything on this page ends up as a line on a payslip or a figure in a register. Shiftelio keeps attendance, leave, salary structure and the statutory deductions in one place, so the number in the letter and the number in the payslip come from the same record.