Employee resigns without proper notice

[Conner Lantz]

#80853

If an employee resigns but does not provide proper notice, are there any options for an employer other than trying to sue them for wrongful resignation? Is it legal for a letter of employment to identify that if an employee chooses to resign any time after the probation period has ended, they must provide a notice period consistent with employment standards legislation, and if they don’t accrued vacation due to be paid out due to the resignation may be reduced by the legislated notice period, or balance of the period if a lesser notice was provided?

[Conner Lantz]

#80852

Yes and No.
Yes, the employment letter may require the employee to provide the notice required by Sec. 58(1) of the Alberta ESC–although you wouldn’t need to do that since employee’s already required to provide notice unless one of the exemptions of Sec. 58(2) applied, in which case the contract clause would come into play. In other words, the contract would require notice even where the ESC doesn’t.
But reducing employees’ accrued vax for not providing required notice would be far more problematic especially if the resulting amount would be below the minimum required by the ESC. I don’t think there’s any way you can do that, but I’m going to get a second opinion from our payroll guru, Alan McEwen. Will relay his response as soon as I get it.

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