An employee can terminate his or her employment by giving the company notice of resignation. If a notice of resignation is to be legally effective, it must indicate the date that the employee intends the contract to end. For example, if the employee tells a manager that he or she intends to resign 'shortly' or writes to the company stating his or her intention to resign if a particular issue is not resolved to his or her satisfaction, that does not amount to notice of resignation.
The employee's contract may specify how the resignation should be made, such as requiring it to be given to the employee's line manager in writing. The contract is also likely to state the period of notice that the employee should give.
Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, a company must notify employees, within two months of starting work, of the length of notice that they must give to terminate their employment. If the employee need only give the minimum notice laid down in the Act (see 'Statutory minimum period' below), then the company can, if it wishes, refer the employee to the Act. Alternatively, if the employee's notice period is contained in a collective agreement, the company can refer the employee to that agreement, provided it is reasonably accessible to the employee.
In the unlikely event that an employee's contract does not mention notice of resignation, a term will be implied into the contract that the employee should give a reasonable amount of notice. The length of notice that is reasonable will depend in large part on the nature of the employee's job. For example, it is likely to be reasonable for a senior executive to give six months' notice or more, whereas it may be reasonable for an unskilled manual worker to give only a week's notice.
The minimum period of notice that an employee can give is fixed by the Employment Rights Act 1996: once the employee has been employed for one continuous month or more, he or she must give at least one week's notice of resignation. This minimum remains the same, regardless of the length of time that the employee has worked for the company. The minimum does not, however, prevent the company waiving its right to notice, nor does it prevent the employee resigning immediately if the company has acted in serious breach of his or her contract.
An employee may be entitled to be paid during the statutory minimum period of his or her notice of resignation, even if he or she is not entitled to be paid under his or her contract because, for example, he or she is on a period of unpaid leave. The circumstances in which this right applies are explained elsewhere in this section (wages during notice ).
Once an employee has given notice of resignation, he or she cannot withdraw that notice unless the company agrees. However, where an employee gives in his or her notice in a fit of pique or after a workplace altercation, the company should not immediately assume that the resignation was intended. If the resignation was given under emotional stress and the company knew or ought to have known that it was not meant to be taken seriously, or if the company was anxious to be rid of the employee and seized on the employee's resignation when it was not intended, a court or employment tribunal might conclude that it was the company that really terminated the employment. In other words, the court or tribunal could conclude that the employee was dismissed.
Therefore, if an employee resigns in the heat of the moment, the company should allow him or her a day or so to reflect and then ask him or her to confirm that the resignation was really intended.
Courts and employment tribunals are concerned to ensure that employees have not been pressurised into giving up their employment rights. In some circumstances, they will look beyond the simple fact that an employee has resigned in order to find out whether it was the employee or the company that really terminated the contract.
If it is clear, therefore, that an employee has resigned under pressure from the company, that might be viewed as a dismissal. Likewise, if a company has 'invited' an employee to resign, or given the employee the option of resigning as an alternative to being dismissed, that could also amount to a dismissal. And an employee who accepts 'voluntary redundancy' is likely to be viewed as having volunteered for dismissal rather than having resigned. The statutory dismissal procedure ( minimum dismissal procedures ) applies whenever the employer contemplates dismissing an employee.