Reducing notice period

[Hackney]

I've been offered a job so will be handing my notice in tomorrow or Tuesday. My contracted notice period is 3 months but I'd like to reduce that. Any suggestions as to how?

Pros
I could have everything handed over within a matter of weeks
My company could recruit a replacement quickly (they have done in another department)
Our technical dept was two people, one person left a couple of months ago, while she was working her notice the manager of the dept resigned giving two month's notice rather than three even though the dept was losing both staff. One replacement has been recruited and is working for the co. now.

Cons
There's no-one outside of my team who could take on the work
My account manger - while very good - has been in the job since April and isn't that experienced. She's also on holiday for two weeks in October

Any suggestions?
Obvious answer is to ask and negotiate, my contract is 3 month's notice so I should live with it.

[rsbmw]

Obvious answer is obvious!

Best way would be to make the business case, and offer to be available for answering "where are the keys" type queries beyond your leaving date.

[Fastdruid]

Most places with sensible HR departments/managers will want someone quitting to be "out the door" as soon as possible. The notice period is however to cover themselves.

Where I work we're also on a 3m notice contract and of the people who've left in the time I've been here only one was asked to stay the full 3m, the rest went at closer to 1m.

While there is always the option to just leave and not turn up, personally I'm very much of the "never burn bridges" approach, certain industries can be quite small and you never know who will move where and it's always possible that a potential future company could have someone you worked with before.

In short the notice period is not going to be written in stone. if someone could do your job until the find a replacement or they could get a replacement in quickly then I'd expect it to be negotiable down. If it's going to be tricky then you're going to have to work the full lot or take a risk of affecting future employment.

[4x4Tyke]

At the end of the day, recognise this is a negotiation and rarely cut and dry.

[mike9009]

I had a three month notice period - which it suited me to leave earlier when I found another role.

On handing my notice in to my boss, I mentioned about leaving early. We had a sensible discussion about where the holes would be on me leaving. I came up with a structured plan on handover with timescales. Mainly this was handing projects over and training people in various software and hardware which I had developed. I offered to provide support after leaving in case anything was missed. I cut the notice period to 7 weeks.

I am a true believer in never burning your bridges but providing a solution to an issue!

Everything was okay when I left, despite some steep learner curves in some software development..... I have actually used my old firm to complete some measurement of components from my new firm without issue too!


Mike

[Hackney]

Due to a couple of things - slight delay in the paperwork from my new company; me being out of the office today and my boss (the MD) being on holiday next week I had to send my notice on email.
The main reason being to get something noted whatever happens.

I've suggested a date in 6 weeks which would certainly give me time to hand everything over and takes into account one of my team being on holiday for two weeks in October.

The boss replied but just to say, "You know I'm on holiday next week (I didn't until yesterday). Let's have a meeting when I get back. I want to know the reason you're leaving"

So hopefully room for negotiating then.