She did hand in resignation 15 days earlier than legally required because she had 3 weeks of vacation planned and wanted to make sure that her employer would not get her to cancel the vacation.
Now, her employer wants her to leave 15 days early which is problematic because she wouldn't be allowed to take any vacation once she's unemployed.
Do you know if an employer is allowed to fire you after you gave your resignation? Or to accept your resignation but change the date?
Yes, her contractual notice is not per month end, but 31 days.
Because she had 14 days vacation, she actually wanted to do the right thing by giving them extra notice to avoid her employer cancelling her holidays if she'd give her notice to close to the end of the month.
Did she write in her resignation: "I wish to tender my resignation as of (date XX days in future)" ?
I would also have added a line "This means my last day of work for Company Y will be XX of X."
As per the above advice from Roegner, she needs to check the contract and see what it says about holiday entitlement after giving notice. Holiday is often accrued as you go along, therefore if you have opnly worked half a year you may only be entitled to half an allowance anyway.
In general, the fact that the employer can anticipate your last day (as long as it is not earlier than the notice period) seems totally reasonable to me, otherwise the following extreme case would be true: you send a resignation latter saying that you resign and your last day will be 31 December 2099 - and voila, now you are unfireable forever
Maybe there are some special provisions given that 15 days extra is a short time frame, but at the high level seems reasonable.
So she wanted to be smart and get her time off paid by the employer? But this just doesn't make sense: if she has any days left at the end of the notice period she should get those paid out (so no monetary loss for her), if she hasn't, then she shouldn't be taking a vacation anyway.
No, she can have all the vacation she wants once she is unemployed. In fact, that is the best time to do it (unless she has something lined up already, but then she wouldn't be taking a vacation...).
If you don't agree, try looking at this from the employer's perspective.
No, if she hated the job, was burning out, was hiding it but was toxic to coworkers it was the best thing to resign and use the unemployment insurance to find a new job if she couldn't just switch the jobs. You don't know how long it lasted. Maybe she was looking for another opportunity but it didn't came...
Now, when you're at RAV, you can't take all the vacation you want, you've got tightly regulated allowance, so paying out for the unused vacation might not be what she wanted/expected/needed
So she had 19 days of vacation to take - which means 4 weeks and the vacation was booked a long time in advance.
Out of courtesy, since giving her notice just 30 days in advance would have meant she'd only have about 3 days of work left before leaving, she thought giving an extra 15 days would give her the time to do a proper handover and finish with them in good terms.
Turns out, they are upset at the resignation and think she did it by accident rather than out of courtesy...
It wasn't about getting her employer to pay her holidays, she should have gotten that anyway, it was about giving them a proper time for handover.
Considering that an employer is allowed to cancel your holidays if circumstances require it, she wanted "to be safe" by not giving her notice once she only have 3 days left before her 3.5 weeks holidays.
Wrong, if anyone is burning out and it's a toxic environment, you should talk to your doctor and get put on medical leave. Use that time to job hunt if you are able - if you are not able, then you are covered by sickness insurance. If you are not fit to work, you are not fit for RAV either.
If you *really* want a break from RAV, you can ask them to delay signing up or take a break - that means no money from them either - but you have your holiday money from your job...
If you aren't happy with your job - try to find another one (whilst still employed)!
In Switzerland, you should not quit if at all possible. Unlike other countries where 'being fired' is a negative, in Switzerland it's not seen as a negative, it's seen as a 'no fault' end of contract.
Theoretically, the employer can request employee to work until last day of contract. If there are unused vacation days, these are paid as working days at end of contract. The safe way to take the vacations was just to say nothing, and resign on the 1st day after vacation. Unfortunately, that is not an option anymore.
The issue that is still not clear are the 15 days. Notice period is 1 month + the days until end of month. For example, if I submit my resignation letter today June 23, there's 7 days until end of month + 31 days in July, so whole notice period is 38 days. If I submitted the letter 2 weeks ago, June 9, the end contract date is the same (July 31) because notice period is days until end of month + 1 month for a total of 51 days. So, there should be no impact of resigning "15 days earlier" since the notice period for resigning and being fired is the same.
Ahhh, that explains everything. She resigned with notice period of 45 days, and employer replied "fired with 30 day notice". Since this is in the contract, it's a shitty but legal move.
It seems it's just another case of trying to do the "right thing" before considering that the other side may lash out for no reason.
This is a very delicate matter. It depends on the job, mine for example require high creativity. When I'm slightly bothered by something, I'm fine but my job performance is reaching the bottom, that's okayish short term, but if it lasts longer there would be trouble. Doctors are reluctant to sign you off until you're seriously (visibly) f* up.
Yes, pretty much, except they ain't firing her, they are changing the date of her resignation so she'd still gets penalized as if she resigned yet it is technically a firing.
That's a bit weird. If employer decides to end the contract, they should end the contract. Not OK to modify the date of resignation. At the same time, she was thinking about resigning anyway. So, time lost for in RAV was already considered.
There may be something wrong in the whole series of events. A lawyer can make a better assessment. First impression is that in spite of something being apparently wrong, it's not clear what can be won by fighting back.