This sounds like an odd situation, how long was he on holiday for? Did he raise objections on his return to work?

If he actually never responded to being issued a new contract, then continuing to work for the company without raising a problem with the contractual terms would be a tacit acceptance of the terms. It's bad practice for the HR team to not follow up and get a signature/formal acceptance of a change in terms, but I *think* the law would be on their side. Having said that, if you end up defaulting to who's legally in the right or the wrong when negotiating an end date, something has gone pretty wrong in the employment relationship!

Notice periods are often not set in stone anyway and depend on the needs of the business, as well as taking into account accrued leave etc so there may be flexibility depending on why they have a long notice period in the first place e.g. is it a business critical role?

Polly's right on every point. The main one I would emphasize (and why I'd suggest this isn't a fight worth fighting) is that the obligation to give notice on the part of the employee is, in the vast majority of cases, a red herring. An employee can normally withdraw their labour without notice and suffer no significant detriment, the exceptions being very senior executives and major fee-earners whose operational loss can be shown to have a specific and quantifiable impact upon the business who could then pursue the leaver for civil damages as a consequence of breach of contract.

For us mere mortals, the risk is negligible and an actual period of worked notice should always be subject to negotiation between the parties if either would like to vary the contractual agreement.

The point about being deemed to have accepted the change if you continue working only applies if you work according to the change. If the specific clause has not arisen, then a court would not find that the employee had tacitly accepted it. Whenever your friend wants to resign he can give the amount of notice he demonstrably agreed to, not what they would have liked him to agree to.

The idea of the HR Department accepting a change to a contract on someone else's behalf is a nonsense. It would be worth going back to your friend to check what they actually did.

In reply to Elizabeth Divver:

Thank you for replying - he was away for a week abroad. The change was rushed through to protect another member of staff - he was not the only one it affected and changed without proper consultation. He did inform the HR department that he did not accept the changes as he was out of the country and not contactable. Sadly they were not very forthcoming with their replies.

Thank you again.

In reply to Samantha:

Hi Samantha

Agree with colleagues that it's not likely ever to be a big difficulty so not worth getting too confrontational or formal about it. If there is evidence about non-acceptance of the change then they're highly unlikely ever to be able to enforce it anyhow - even less likely than if he was contractually bound by three months notice but pushed off after a month.

It's pretty destructive of 'mutual trust and confidence' for the employer to be trying this on and highly inept / unprofessional etc that their HR folk are trying to enforce it.

But all told, a bit pathetic rather than worth worrying too much over.