Unlocking Electronic Signature Legitimateness for Job Applicant Rejection Letter in United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: electronic signature legitimateness for Job Applicant Rejection Letter in United Kingdom

hi my name is Robert Shelley with Shelley law and my Law Firm assist professionals with employment contract and independent contractor agreement issues today I'm going to talk about how to decline a job offer after you have signed a contract so this is a tricky one but let's kind of walk through the process so if you are going to be an employee or an independent contractor working with an organization and you're in a position that requires an employment contract or independent contractor agreement generally the process is they'll discuss terms initially they'll maybe give you an offer letter and then once the terms are agreed upon then they'll provide you with an employment contract or any kind of contractor agreement you sign the agreement and then whatever the start date is you would anticipate starting when you can now what happens if you sign the agreement and then for whatever reason don't want to go through with the job can't go through with the job something else has happened in your life that prevents you from starting the job well first you need to look at the terms of the employment contract in any appointment contract there's going to be a section that's called termination and that dictates how a contract can be terminated and most contracts require some kind of notice prior to terminating the contract so even if you sign an agreement and you haven't even started well you still have to provide notice that you are going to terminate the contract and the contract's also going to say how you can provide notice and most of the time or not most of the time all of the time it's written notice provided to the employer either through um can delivery or certified mail or something like that so the first thing you need to identify is how much notice do I have to provide the employer to terminate the contract now second are there any penalties associated with terminating the contract before you start I would say it's relatively rare but there are there are contracts that will explicitly state if the employee signs the contract and is scheduled to start at a certain date and doesn't start on that date they will owe the employer in monetary penalty it could be five thousand ten thousand fifteen thousand uh and they justify that to say it covers their recruitment costs and onboarding and maybe credentialing if there's insurance companies or Health Care Facilities associated so um if there is some kind of penalty and you decide not to start for whatever reason they they could attempt to enforce that and then you would be bound by whatever the penalties is you know Associated were on a practical level I find if someone can't start a job for legitimate reasons and what I mean by legitimate reasons are it's not because you found a job that pays you more um it's maybe there's a sickness in your family or personally or there's been some kind of change um as far as what career you want to go into like a personal reason that's just not going to work for you to start the position approach the employer talk to them like a normal person this is what's going on in my life I understand I signed the contract but I'm just not going to be able to start if if you approach it in that way I find most employers are for the most part agreeable and amenable to just letting the person go now if you're someone who's just simply pitting one job against another or you've even signed a contract and you say you know what I know I've signed the contract but I have another job that's offering me twice as much will you match that generally not going to be the employer's not going to be super receptive to that so if that is the situation then I would be careful about what I would uh you know I guess provide to you the organization that you sign the contract with because I can promise you they're not going to be super excited for you to leave a position if it's simply for more money or benefit or whatever um so uh just going over first identify how you can terminate the contract what the notice requirement is what the penalties associated with breaking the contract will be if it's explicitly stated and then kind of the last thing you need to think about are the restrictive covenants even if you haven't started a job if you sign an employment contract and there are a non-compete or a non-solicit or whatever those restrictive covenants are still going to apply even though you didn't start doesn't seem fair but that's reality you sign the contract you're bound to the terms now maybe you're in a state where um non-competition Clauses are completely unenforceable only a handful of those I would check and see what the rules and kind of General case law is regarding non-competes in your specialty in the state that you're in but that's another consideration if I back out of this agreement and a non-compete does apply am I trying to move to a job that's in that restricted area during the time period so that's one more thing you need to think about if you sign a contract and don't want to start the job it's not great like there's no easy way there's no black and white this is exactly what you need to do every situation is a little bit different the best way of handling it in my experience is just to act like a normal person talk to the employer like a normal person this is what's going on in my life this is why I can't start this job can we just kind of wash your hands of the situation and move on and obviously the more notice you can provide the better if you give the employer four months notice like let's say I you know I do a lot of contract review for Physicians so some of them sign employment agreements a year in advance of when they're done with training if you give notice the employer six months before you're supposed to start well that allows them plenty of time to find a replacement and most likely they're not going to make a big deal out of it yeah if you give notice the employer one week before you start you can bet it's going to be a problem and they have gone through credentialing um with insurance companies facilities malpractice insurance maybe they staffed up to meet the needs of the physician like think of all the things that they would have to do and then providing them with only one week notice is likely going to be met with um some negative emotions on the part of the employer so keep that in mind so anyway hopefully that was helpful if you have any questions feel free to contact my Law Firm at the phone number listed below in the description and the websites down there as well anyway hopefully this is helpful and appreciate you watching the video thanks