Reasonable Notice - sounds innocuous but can be expensive

It is a trite proposition that employment contracts are important. One key benefit of having an applicable employment contract in place governing an employment relationship is that the notice an employer is required to give to the employee to terminate employment is, subject to the minimum legislative requirements in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), the period specified in that contract. As a general proposition, the specified periods of notice in employment contracts are rarely more than 6 months (usually for senior executives) and more commonly between 1 and 3 months.

If a court finds that there is no applicable employment contract in place then the employer needs to give "reasonable notice" to terminate the employment relationship - while this might sound benign, reasonable notice will often far exceed the period that would likely have been specified in an employment contract for the same employee.