Over here employers must give you a notice of termination, the length of which depends on how long you worked for the company. For employees with over a decade of loyalty, this period can be a year or more.
The intent is that a worker can get enough time to find a new employment.
The regulation has a perverse effect. As an employee who is on notice is generally no longer trusted to prioritise the company's best interest, the practise is to just pay out the wages for the notice period but prevent further access to the business and its clients.
This makes firing someone with enough tenure an expensive deal.
There are two ways around this. (1) If you can fire someone for 'grave and urgent resons', let's say you caught them stealing from the till, the the termination period does not hold, and you can fire them on the spot. Problem is that 'grave and urgent' is not a very well defined concept, and therefore is open to abuse. You got ill and did not submit a doctor's notice within 24hrs to HR? That is formally 'illegal absense' and could be a 'grave and urgent' termination offense.
(2) The notice period is reversed in case it is the employee quits. Then they have to give the company the lengthy notice. Same as above the employee is usually alowwed to leave much sooner if he agrees to tie up some loose ends and do a handover. In practice many employees that a company wants to fire will be nudged/pestered into quitting by making their work more difficult or less attractive.
The regulation is well intended and for the right reasons, but fails in practice.
If you say that it fails in practice, is that your opinion or is that a general opinion? Presumably, in some cases the regulation that you mention works the way it was intended?
I wouldn't mind not working in the notice period; it would be a plus for me. The other question is also of course: What kind of a law should supercede such a law?
I am not saying I disagree with you or anything like that, but what I am saying is that developing countries (for example) usually have concrete problems that make some scenarios around regulation in developed countries look somehow immaterial or even amusing.
By the way, newer labour regulation in South Africa are also causing problems. Our particular problem is that you don't want to hire people anyway; you would rather downscale. If you hire someone who turns out to be a incapable employee, you have a harder time letting them go. This disincentivises "giving someone a chance" with an uncertain ability or a unusual background.
But we have >60% youth unemployment (I think that is defined as aged 18–35) and that overrides most arguments or high level laws—there are simply more pressing matters at hand.
It is not just my opinion. I have friends that are HR managers and this view seems to be generally accepted among them.
The hiring is another issue. Over here there is always a 6 month 'trial' period when you hire someone. During those first six months, both the employer and the employee can end the contract without repercussions. This acknowledges that no screening/hiring process will be perfect, and that bad matches do happen.
Employment law and regulation is not easy to change as it impacts the lives of so many. My personal opinion is that even then this is just part of an even larger rethink we need in an age where most 'work' (not all) has long ceased to be a productive contribution to society, and has mealy become a game for a polarized redistribution of 'wealth', that is not just viciously usurping our lives and the environment, but due to its penchant for 'growth' those of future generations as well.
> employment law and regulation is not easy to change as it impacts the lives of so many
OK, so assuming a significant amount of people disapprove of these laws, why are they not changed? Do you suggest that it is institutional inertia or populist pressure?
I know about the 6 month rule; it seems like a logical and useful feature.
In South Africa the answer is simple about why our practical implementation of regulations is not good: our government is dysfunctional. From a point of view of our actual laws, they are well written and better than many European countries, but they are selectively implemented.
Over here employers must give you a notice of termination, the length of which depends on how long you worked for the company. For employees with over a decade of loyalty, this period can be a year or more.
The intent is that a worker can get enough time to find a new employment.
The regulation has a perverse effect. As an employee who is on notice is generally no longer trusted to prioritise the company's best interest, the practise is to just pay out the wages for the notice period but prevent further access to the business and its clients.
This makes firing someone with enough tenure an expensive deal.
There are two ways around this. (1) If you can fire someone for 'grave and urgent resons', let's say you caught them stealing from the till, the the termination period does not hold, and you can fire them on the spot. Problem is that 'grave and urgent' is not a very well defined concept, and therefore is open to abuse. You got ill and did not submit a doctor's notice within 24hrs to HR? That is formally 'illegal absense' and could be a 'grave and urgent' termination offense.
(2) The notice period is reversed in case it is the employee quits. Then they have to give the company the lengthy notice. Same as above the employee is usually alowwed to leave much sooner if he agrees to tie up some loose ends and do a handover. In practice many employees that a company wants to fire will be nudged/pestered into quitting by making their work more difficult or less attractive.
The regulation is well intended and for the right reasons, but fails in practice.