I was hoping for the same thing when I left my last company after 12 years. Nope, the powers that be insisted I worked every day of my 3 months notice.. just a word of caution!

In reality, if they didn't put me on gardening leave I'd negotiate it down to something like 1 month.

If they're sensible they'll agree. After all, what do they want; me working hard and being productive for 1 month, or me doing the minimum (or less) for 3?

All hypothetical at the moment though

My OH resigned and when he did so, HR suddenly announced that his notice period was three months, not one. Apparently, they had changed this policy and it had been implemented for staff who were recruited after my husband joined the company. They had then decided to apply it to everyone giving notice, whether they had originally agreed to this or not in their original contract.

He basically said to his boss that it was tough, he was going to Canada in a month and that was that. My OH had made sure that the notice period would bring his work to a sensible end at the conclusion of a big project so that he could tie up the ends and leave his successor with a clear field at the beginning of a new project, so it made no business sense to insist on 3 months notice anyway.
His boss was a good bloke and said he would sort it and he did.

Unless you are very senior indeed, 3 months notice is far too long and is unacceptable.
The company would probably be upset if they recruited a member of staff and then had to wait 3 months for them to start while they worked their notice, so why should they impose this on staff leaving?

Considering what we have seen (that they are often happier to just shove you out of the door on the day you resign) one month for most employees is fair enough.

"Gardening leave" is a bonus, though and shouldn't be expected.
If you have to work your notice, it's unlucky perhaps but not unfair.

Maybe hinting subtley at the unbridled chaos an unscrupulous and disgruntled employee could cause during their extended notice period might speed your departure if you are in this situation.

firstly... i hope you have all considered your usernames. the internet is a scary place and if chrisparr is your real name... gulp you may have just outed yourself. all it takes is for someone to hear a rhumour and google you and bam. "oh you are emigrating, and discussing company plans with the world huh?"

now ive done my enemy of the state bit... congrats for handing in your notice.
i agree it should be discussed that you have a dream of moving one day to canada, but certainly dont tell the staff before the boss. im lucky- i am a full time parent now but i was made redundant a while ago and we were all searched before we left. escorted out etc. sales men i can understand, they could take the clients with them, and in my position ( sensetive financials) i could understand they flipped thru my day planner in my handbag, just incase i had stored any information i had no right to - it still felt like a bit of an intrustion but i wasnt hiding anything so it didnt matter.

dh is lucky, one weeks notice and has nearly 4 weeks holiday stored so we will go out there, have three weeks, if there is a major disaster, he has a job to come back to. if not then two weeks in if its all gravy we can get my mum to hand in the letter of resignation she will be holding, giving the requisite notice. they dont value him, they dont pay him properly and they dont give a crud so since he is 2 a penny, it wont be hard to replace him. in reality he is very well qualified, and they will struggle to find someone who can drive the variety of vehichles he can drive but hey ho.

I understand, but with the mood around here at the moment it isn't a secret. It would be an interesting experiment to see what would happen if this thread was stumbled upon

And I wouldn't give away any company plans (at least I hope I haven't) as that they could give them grounds for just throwing me out.

Too right, TJ.

I am always amazed that people put their real names as their username.
Linking up posts, there is a huge amount of information on the internet - even just on a forum like this.
It's easy to find yourself identified.

I recently heard of an employee at a friend's place of work who was posting about their current workplace on one of the social networking sites in less than glowing terms under their real name.

They were found by a colleague and word got round.....
It has put the boss in a very difficult position, as they hired them personally. Now this comes out it has damaged the boss's credibility and seriously undermined their authority.

It is a terrible idea to reveal too much about your plans to work colleagues, even if you consider them to be friends.
It only takes one slip and word is out and you are potentially in a lot of trouble.

I don't think there is any company that would want to hear of any employee planning their departure through an unofficial 'on the grapevine' route, but if you are a senior bod then it is very dangerous indeed. (Not that I would know about that personally, being just a foot soldier)

I was just thinking exactly the same thing when I saw this...

The word is out here about my plans for Canada thanks to linked in.

I shut down my news feed so it wouldn't post updates. What linked in don't tell you (well the do if you can find the correct help page), it that your news feed will be locked down...... but not for information regarding linked in groups.

So when I joined the Calgary IT job group, I had no idea it was fed to all my contacts until a few people came up to me the next day and asked if I was moving to Canada.

I'd rather of kept it secret, but I'm not bothered. They can't sack me (legally) for wanting to move to another country.

Understood but, for anyone else reading this, I would NEVER divulge your plans to your employer or coworkers until you absolutely had to. I've seen too many people get burned for doing that even when their intentions were good.

I was so lucky, I was a contractor when I left so I actually started my 6 month contract with everybody knowing I was about to emigrate.
When the ship the container was on set sail we all gathered around the bosses computer to check on it's whereabouts! How kool was that?
(Saying that my previous boss stopped talking to me from the day I gave her my notice!!)
Happy days

But bosses can be vindictive and if someone isn't ready to hand in their notice yet (bearing in mind that emigration takes a long time) there is plenty of time for a boss to engineer things to make out that you are incompetent or include you in any 'redundancy' plans that are afoot.

I wouldn't want to risk it.

Not every move the Canada comes off. People fail medicals, jobs fall through etc, so no point getting everyone wound up until its a done deal. But you also need to consider that not every move to canada turns out to be a dream come true (unless nightmares count), so you really dont want to burn any bridges if you can avoid it. The ones that have the easiest time going back are the ones whos bosses are glad to have them back in the team.

How you handle the transition is very dependent on how you think a boss will deal with it, its not a one size fits all situation. Some you wouldnt dream of giving the opportunity to screw you over, some you might want to help with making the transition as smooth as possible in order to keep doors open in future in case you need to activate "plan B"

Scare mongering.....Have you ever posted pictures online? If the answer is yes, then I can tell you from what I know in my line of work, that the picture can be used to track you down and eventually reveal your identity.

There are other way and means of course. Where does the media go 1st whenever someoone does something wrong? FACEBOOK, which has most users using their real names of course

I have. Pictures of my cat. Shall I expect a knock on the door?