Deadlines for written notice of termination of employment and contract (2021)

Fixed-term employment contract

Most often, employment contracts concluded between an employer and an employee are of an open-ended nature. This means that they indicate only the first day of work of the employee at the enterprise. Such contracts can be terminated at any time, either at the initiative of the subordinate or at the will of the employer (in the second case, with mandatory justification and full compliance with the procedure established by law).

The situation is somewhat different with fixed-term employment contracts. Usually they are concluded for the execution of a specific task or work, which must be carried out within a strictly defined period.

They have an exact start and end date, i.e. they stipulate in advance a clear period of time during which the employee is obliged to perform his functions.

After the expiration of this period, the contract either terminates or is extended (extended).

It should be noted that the parties have every right to terminate their relationship even before the employee’s last day of work in the company.

To terminate a fixed-term employment contract with a subordinate, the employer is obliged to send him a corresponding written notice.

How to properly familiarize an employee with a document?

The Labor Code of the Russian Federation requires that the employee be familiarized with a written notice, but how to obtain confirmation of familiarization? There are several options for the development of events:

The employee signed the notice. This is the simplest outcome that will suit everyone - the employer, the employee, and the court in the event of a controversial situation.
The employee did not sign and an act of refusal was drawn up against the signature. It will require the signatures of two witnesses, but courts do not always accept such documents as true.

The notice was sent to the employee by registered return mail. In this case, the employee's signature is not required. This is the best option for “difficult” employees, but you need to prepare it in advance.

If the registered letter is not demanded and is returned as not received, the court will regard this as abuse by the employee, and not a violation on the part of the company.

General points for drawing up notices of termination of any contracts:

When should the employee be notified?

To notify an employee of the termination of a fixed-term employment contract, the law gives the employer three days before its expiration. The notice must not only indicate the date from which the employment relationship is terminated, but also indicate the reason for it.

You should also be sure to obtain the employee’s signature confirming that he has read the document - in the future, this autograph will indicate that all formalities upon dismissal of this employee were completed in full.

Notice period for dismissal

The most common case of notice of dismissal is the expiration of a fixed-term employment contract . The procedure for such notification is prescribed in Art. 79 Labor Code of the Russian Federation. It requires notifying the employee at least three calendar days before this date.

Failure to comply with this deadline will entail the illegality of subsequent dismissal, and the employee will automatically move from the category of temporary to permanent.

The exception is temporary workers hired to replace an absent employee. Even if the employer knows when he will return, it is not necessary to notify the employee about this. He must be fired on the day the main employee returns to work.

The Labor Code sets aside the same period for informing about the termination of the employment relationship due to poor passing of the test . The employer can fire an employee he doesn’t like, having collected all the necessary evidence, at any time during the trial stage, notifying him three days in advance .

Also Art. 71 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation also sets a three-day period for the test subject to notify the employer that the work is not suitable for him and he will not continue it.

A different case is represented by Art. 288 Labor Code of the Russian Federation. Part-time workers are in a special position, whose work is less protected by law than the work of permanent employees. If a company finds a permanent employee to fill a position occupied by a part-time employee, it can make a replacement. The part-time worker must be notified of this at least two weeks in advance .

Particularly difficult is notifying employees about potentially massive layoffs - staff reductions and liquidation of the organization. The legislator classified these dismissals into one category and in Art. 180 established the general dismissal period: no less than 2 months .

An employee can be fired earlier by paying appropriate compensation (Part 3 of Article 180), but the notice period will still be different.

These periods are reduced for seasonal workers to a week (Part 2 of Article 296 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation establishes a seven-day notice period), and for temporary workers with a contract period of less than 2 months - to three days, as well as upon expiration of the contract.

General information about the notification, features of its preparation

If you need to generate a notice of termination of a fixed-term employment contract, and you have no idea how to write it correctly, read our tips. Also look at the example document below - based on it you can easily create your own form.

Before going into detail about this particular notice, here is some general information that is common to all such documents.

First of all, keep in mind that there is currently no standard, unified form of notification. This means one thing: it can be drawn up either in free form or according to a template developed within the company (in this case, the form of the document must be approved in its accounting policy). The method of writing the notice must also be specified in the regulations of the enterprise.

The notification can be made on letterhead (if such a requirement is established by management) or on a simple plain sheet of paper (preferably A4 format). The document can be written by hand or typed on a computer (with further printing) - all these parameters do not matter.

The main thing is that the form is signed by the director or employee authorized to endorse such papers on his behalf.

There is no strict need to certify the notification with a seal - this should be done only when this norm is available in the local documents of the organization.

It is better to formulate the notification in two identical copies (if by hand, then using a carbon copy), one of which is sent to the employee, the second is left in the organization.

Also, information about the form must be entered in a special accounting journal - these should be available in every company.

Legal aspects

To break the relationship due to the expiration of a pre-concluded contract, the fixed-term form is not enough from the point of view of labor legislation. Article 58 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, on the contrary, indicates that in the event of “forgetfulness” of the participating parties, the agreement automatically becomes permanent with all the ensuing circumstances.

In accordance with Article 79 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the employer is obliged to specify the act of expression of will on termination by fulfilling two mandatory conditions:

hand over in person or send by mail a valuable letter to the employee with a list of attachments, a notice of termination of a fixed-term employment contract;
the delivery period cannot be less than three calendar days before the termination of the agreement, with the exception of termination of relations in connection with the departure of the main employee, whose place the dismissed employee occupied temporarily.

If the expiration date cannot be established in a calendar manner, then the period is tied to the upcoming event, which is indicated in the agreement upon conclusion, and is duplicated in the dismissal order and notice of termination of the employment contract.

Events that sum up the employee’s temporary activities may include:

return to work for an absent employee;
completion of a certain type of work;
calendar end of the season.

Dismissal by agreement of the parties with payment of compensation

If the date of occurrence of the defining event was unknown to the employer (for example, the permanent employee did not notify in advance of his intention to begin performing his official duties), then the employer is obliged to confront the temporary employee with the same period of time in which he was personally notified.

The exception is pregnant women, whom it is impossible to dismiss without consent, and if there is an application, the employer is obliged to extend the term of the contract until the onset of maternity leave. If the resigning person wishes to take advantage of the vacation right before dismissal, the period provided for rest may partially or completely overlap the term of the contract. In this case, the last working day is considered the final day of vacation.

Sample notice of termination of a fixed-term employment contract

At the beginning of the document you should write:

his name;
number (in accordance with internal document flow);
date(current);
place (settlement) of compilation.

Then the following is entered into the main block:

the actual notification that the employment relationship with the employee is being terminated;
name of the company, position and full name of its director, as well as information about the employee;
link to the article of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation justifying the employer’s actions;
number and date of a fixed-term employment contract previously concluded with the employee;
the date from which it ceases to be valid;
the last day of work, as well as an offer to come to the personnel department for a work book and other documents.

In conclusion, it would not be amiss to remind the employee that before the employment contract terminates, he must continue his work in full.

At the end, the document is signed by the employer's representative.

Stage 2. Drawing up an order, filling out the employee’s personal file

Step 4. The employer issues an order to dismiss the employee due to the expiration of the fixed-term employment agreement (contract). Separately, we have forms: a dismissal order upon completion of work and a dismissal order upon the departure of the main employee.
Step 5. The employer introduces the order to the employee against signature.
Step 6. The employer makes a notice of dismissal in the employee’s work book.
Step 7. The employer familiarizes the employee with the notice of dismissal in the work book (this is done if the company maintains a personal card for the employee and the card has a column for such familiarization).
Step 8. The employer attaches a copy of the dismissal order to the employee’s personal file, and the personal file is transferred to the archive.

When is notification of termination of cooperation required?

There are several circumstances in connection with which the employer needs to prepare notices and inform subordinates about the upcoming dismissal:

the agreement expires (short-term cooperation);
staff reduction or liquidation of the organization (IP) is planned;
the employee is dismissed at the initiative of the employer due to various circumstances, for example, he has not passed certification and is not suitable for the position held;
other reasons, for example, an employee who has been reinstated in court returns to the workplace.

A separate article 307 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation is devoted to the specifics of terminating contracts with employers registered as individual entrepreneurs. It follows from it that individual entrepreneurs are obliged to notify subordinates about the end of cooperation only if this is stipulated in the employment contracts. As for the guarantees regarding the sending of notices of dismissal stated in Part 1 of Art. 178 Labor Code of the Russian Federation, part 2, art. 180 Labor Code of the Russian Federation, part 2, 3 art. 296 Labor Code of the Russian Federation, Part 1, Art. 318 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, they are given to employees only if they are employed in the organization. The conclusion that individual entrepreneurs are not required to notify about the upcoming termination of the contract is confirmed by judicial practice (see paragraph 28 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 15 dated May 29, 2018, Appeal ruling of the Supreme Court of the Altai Republic dated September 4, 2013 in the case No. 33-647).

When terminating a fixed-term contract concluded for a certain period (for performing seasonal work, replacing a main employee, performing urgent work), a notice of non-renewal of the employment contract is drawn up in writing. According to Art. 58 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, a contract indicating a term becomes indefinite if the dismissal did not occur at the initiative of one of the parties and the employee continues to work. Such rules are applied in practice even if the termination procedure is not followed. .

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