On 23 December 2025, a disturbing story from r/IndianWorkplace made its way into startup news and HR circles. An employee posted that after resigning from a company in order to join a new employer, HR gave them two options – serve a two month notice period or pay for a buyout. Wanting a clean, quick exit, they chose the buyout. According to the post, HR escalated the matter to the current companys CEO, who was away at the time. Instead of speaking to the employee, the CEO allegedly called the new companys CEO, persuaded them to revoke the offer, and then quietly let the employee discover that their fresh opportunity had vanished. Weeks of mixed signals followed, with emotional appeals to stay, vague promises of extra pay, and then a sudden claim that finances were too tight to honour any commitment, leaving the employee trapped in a job they no longer trusted and with no backup offer in hand.
The emotions behind this post will feel familiar to many Indian professionals stuck in long notice periods and opaque exit processes. Imagine serving your employer responsibly, sharing your plans in good faith because leaders say they value transparency, and then realising that the same information was used against you. The employee describes feeling cornered, unpaid and stuck, while commenters advise future resigners to never reveal the name of their next company and to treat notice periods as a politically sensitive zone rather than a neutral handover. For HR, this kind of story is reputational poison: employees internalise it as proof that leadership will prioritise control over fairness, and that exit interviews and stay conversations might be less about listening and more about pressure. It also deepens the growing cynicism around 60 and 90 day notice periods, which many feel are being used as soft handcuffs rather than genuine transition tools.
Legally, the incident also raises sharp questions for compliance heads and founders about how far they can go while protecting business interests. Indian law does not fix a uniform notice period, but contracts and standing orders do, and unfair interference with a former or future employer can slide into restraint of trade territory under the Contract Act, or even allegations of tortious interference and unethical business practice. Recent Supreme Court decisions on employment bonds have upheld reasonable, clearly drafted obligations, but they also underline that penalties and lock in mechanisms must be proportionate and justifiable, not a blank cheque to trap people. HR and legal teams in startups and SMEs should therefore revisit their exit and reference policies, train managers not to weaponise relationships with other founders, and create documented guardrails on what can and cannot be shared about a departing employee with external companies.
If you were the HR head in the company whose CEO made that call, what concrete steps would you take to rebuild trust with your current workforce?
As an HR or business leader, where do you draw the ethical line between protecting your organisation from attrition and respecting an employees freedom to move on?
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7The emotions behind this post will feel familiar to many Indian professionals stuck in long notice periods and opaque exit processes. Imagine serving your employer responsibly, sharing your plans in good faith because leaders say they value transparency, and then realising that the same information was used against you. The employee describes feeling cornered, unpaid and stuck, while commenters advise future resigners to never reveal the name of their next company and to treat notice periods as a politically sensitive zone rather than a neutral handover. For HR, this kind of story is reputational poison: employees internalise it as proof that leadership will prioritise control over fairness, and that exit interviews and stay conversations might be less about listening and more about pressure. It also deepens the growing cynicism around 60 and 90 day notice periods, which many feel are being used as soft handcuffs rather than genuine transition tools.
Legally, the incident also raises sharp questions for compliance heads and founders about how far they can go while protecting business interests. Indian law does not fix a uniform notice period, but contracts and standing orders do, and unfair interference with a former or future employer can slide into restraint of trade territory under the Contract Act, or even allegations of tortious interference and unethical business practice. Recent Supreme Court decisions on employment bonds have upheld reasonable, clearly drafted obligations, but they also underline that penalties and lock in mechanisms must be proportionate and justifiable, not a blank cheque to trap people. HR and legal teams in startups and SMEs should therefore revisit their exit and reference policies, train managers not to weaponise relationships with other founders, and create documented guardrails on what can and cannot be shared about a departing employee with external companies.
If you were the HR head in the company whose CEO made that call, what concrete steps would you take to rebuild trust with your current workforce?
As an HR or business leader, where do you draw the ethical line between protecting your organisation from attrition and respecting an employees freedom to move on?
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