Procedures for leaving the HCT

An Employee who wishes to resign should first of all have a discussion / notify his/her supervisor. Then, a resignation letter should be written / typed and addressed to your Director stating the date of resignation and last working day. Please note the following required notice period: (Faculty are Grade 5.)

The resignation letter will be forwarded to the Personnel Officer. At this stage a ‘Resignation Form’ (see example http://mis.hct.ac.ae/hrs/oforms/resign.asp will be filled out by the Personnel Officer in the employee’s presence. This form will be signed by the employee, Supervisor, Personnel Officer and College Director and submitted to Central Services for Personnel Committee approval.

There is not a huge amount of groundwork to be done by the employee until the month before departure. However, you can start by selling all the junk you have accumulated over the years on the ‘staff for sale’ website.

Approximately a month before departure, the Personnel Officer will give you a copy of what is called a ‘Final Clearance Form’. This is a sort of check list of items that need to be signed off (a copy attached) – some of the items may not be applicable to you and some that relate to HCT housing:

You will be asked to produce a ‘No Liability Certificate’ – stating that you have no outstanding loans / credit card bills etc.

If an employee has a bank loan / money outstanding and therefore is unable to get a clearance letter from the bank, the Personnel Officer will accompany the employee to the bank and pay the Final Separation cheque into his / her Bank Account. In no circumstances will the cheque be handed over to the employee if they have outstanding bank loans.

* Please note – SOME banks take a considerable length of time to produce a ‘no liability certificate’ for credit cards. It is advisable to call your bank and find out how long the process takes. This can range from 2 days to 2 months.

You will have to liaise with the Housing and Visa Officer if you are in HCT housing and or if you are on HCT visa sponsorship.

Please let the Housing and Visa Officer know when you plan to leave the country and when you would like to vacate the housing. Usually there is a two week grace period after the last working day when the employee can stay on in the house and get organized. It is personal preference whether you leave the day after the college closes, or a couple of days, weeks.

In the case of U.A.E. Nationals and ex-pats who are not leaving the country, the lease may be transferred to another name with college approval.

About a week before you plan to leave, you can go to DEWA, pay your bill up to date and receive a water and electricity clearance certificate. HCT will pick up the bill for the last week or so of your stay.

If you have a landline, you will need to take a trip to Etisalat, get your telephone disconnected, pay the final bill and receive a clearance certificate.

Received from a departing staff member June 11,2007.......It took me 15 minutes to close the Internet and landline account and I have to go back in 2 days to collect the clearance certificate. I went to the Al Twar Centre near the Ministry of Education. It is only 10 minutes from the College and is heaps better than going into the Deira branch.

The Housing and Visa Officer will arrange to check the house for any obvious damage that the landlord may pick up on – but, allowing for normal wear and tear!

Other college signatures are required on the Final Clearance Form finalclearanceform.doc. ( sometimes referred to as the form of "a thousand signatures") An example- DWC LRC are required to check that you have no outstanding books on their system and will sign off for you. All of the people listed on the form are well aware of the form and will sign off quickly – it shouldn’t take too much time. *Advice – take the form personally and stand and wait for the person to sign off !

Faculty and above must be covered by the HCT Health Insurance plan up until the time that they leave HCT. Therefore, if you are leaving on the 20^th June – you must pay for the month of June. Your HCT Health Insurance plan card must be handed in before you leave the country – this can be done by returning the card to the Personnel Officer with the Final Clearance Form, or by returning the card to your Housing and Visa Officer at the airport on departure.

You will often hear people talking about their ‘End of Service Bonus’. This is a bonus that is calculated at one month's salary for every complete year of continuous service calculated at the rate applicable in the final month of service. Any fraction of a year in excess of a complete year shall be paid to an employee in proportion to the number of days worked in that year.

Unfortunately, U.A.E. Nationals are not eligible to receive an end of service bonus- sorry! Instead, departing U.A.E. Nationals will fill out a “Pension’ Form.

A UAE National on full time employment has to contribute towards the pension from his/her monthly salary as follows:

5% X (Total Salary + Cost of Living Allowance + Social Allowance + Social Child Allowance + Rent Allowance)

The employee's contribution is recovered through payroll deductions on monthly basis. HCT, as the employer, contributes 15% of the salary for each employee

1. Pension Form (departing employees form) - original
2. Employment Contract - copy
3. Passport - copy
4. Family Book - copy
5. Bank letter to state account number at the time of leaving HCT - original preferred
6. Resignation/termination letter - copy
7. Approved resignation/termination form - copy

When a person resigns, the resignation has to be approved by the College Director and the Personnel Committee. On receipt of this approval, Central Services will e-mail the draft Final Separation to the respective College Personnel Officer.

Here are some guidelines on how the Final Settlement is calculated. You may use these to double check the calculations when the draft is sent to you for confirmation.

An example to show Terminal Leave and Accrued leave:
Resignation Date: 1 Feb 2006
Last Working Date: 19 Jun 2006
Separation Date: 31 Jul 2006

Therefore in this case, Terminal leave is 42 days i.e. from 20 Jun to 31 Jul 2006

E.g. Employee has worked for a total of 29 months and 12 days. His monthly salary in the final month is Dhs. 11509. Therefore the End of Service will be calculated as follows:

(Dhs. 11509 / 12 months * 29 months) + (Dhs. 11509 / 12 months / 30 days (average days in a month) x 12 days)

In case the employee has taken any Unpaid Leave during his tenure with HCT, the End of Service for this period should be subtracted from the total.

E.g. If employee has taken a total of 19 days as Unpaid leave, the EOS will be calculated as

((Dhs. 11509 / 12 months * 29 months) + (Dhs. 11509 / 12 months / 30 days (average days in a month) x 12 days) ) - (Dhs. 11509 / 12 months / 30 days * 19 days unpaid leave)= Dhs. 27,813.42 + Dhs. 383.64 = Dhs. 28,197.05 - 607.41 = Dhs. 27,589.64

This will be paid only if employee and dependents are canceling visa and repatriating. It is paid only for Resident dependents that will be canceling visa and repatriating. If the employee decides to stay in the country, arrangements can be made to transfer the visa to another sponsor (rather than cancel the visa) with college approval.

For employees who have joined after 1 January 1999, the amortization period is 3 years.

The prorated recovery will be made depending upon the length of service and the total amount paid to employee. E.g.

Employee received Dhs. 30000 on his date of hire 1 March 2000.
His Separation Date is 20 June 2001. Therefore the calculation is as follows

Amount to be recovered from Final Settlement = 30,000 - 13333.33 = Dhs. 16666.67

Recovery: An employee is entitled to the Vacation Ticket benefit only for the prorated period. Therefore, in case employee has already availed of the benefit for the final ticket entitlement year, there will be a recovery for the period he is not entitled E.g.

Employee's date of hire is 15 August 1996
Employee's entitlement year starts 15 Aug 2001
Entitlement year ends 14 August 2002
Separation Date 20 May 2002
Employee has already claimed vacation tickets for Self and Spouse for Entitlement year 2001 to 2002 - Dhs. 2500 each.

15 August 2001 to 14 May 2002 = 9 months
Plus 6 days of May = rounded off to 1 month

Amount paid to employee Dhs. 5000

Amount entitled Dhs. 4166.67
Difference to be recovered = Dhs. 5000 - 4166.67 = Dhs. 833.33

Reimbursement:
An employee is entitled to the Vacation Ticket benefit only for the prorated period. Therefore, in case employee has not yet availed of the benefit for the final contract year, there will be a reimbursement for the period he / she is entitled to E.g.

Employee's date of hire is 15 August 1996
Employee's Contract Year starts 15 Aug 2001
Contract year ends 14 August 2002
Separation Date 20 May 2002
Employee has not claimed this vacation tickets for Self and Spouse for Contract year 2001 to 2002 @ Dhs. 2500 each. Therefore the calculation is as follows:

15 August 2001 to 14 May 2002 = 9 months
Plus 6 days of May = rounded off to 1 month

Therefore Dhs. 4166.67 will be reimbursed/paid to employee in his Final Settlement.

Once the Resignation calculations are agreed upon, CS will issue a cheque and send it to the Personnel Officer. The Personnel Officer will then hand over the cheque to the employee on receipt of a fully completed Final Clearance Form.

If an employee has a Bank Loan and therefore unable to get a clearance letter from the bank, the Personnel Officer will accompany the employee to the bank and pay the Final Separation cheque in to his / her Bank Account. In no circumstances will the cheque be handed over to the employee if they have outstanding bank loans.

Often now staff will be asked to for a police check when they go to a new position. It is easier to get it done whilst you are still here then trying to do it from another country.

This is what I now have from an Australian who moved to Qatar

Leigh

“Getting the Dubai police clearance was easy. Just go to police headquarters near Al Mulla, the exterior office furthest from Al Mulla if I remember correctly. You probably need passports photocopies, and photos and I think it is supposed to be done before your residential/work visas are cancelled. I think it cost AED110 or something like that. It involves being digitally finger-printed, and takes 3 working days to process.

Whoever is asking needs to then find out if they need to be attested, and if so by whom.

I've got the Dubai certificate and one from the AFP in Australia, and so far I have had to get them attested by the Australian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dubai, and the Qatar Consulate General in Dubai. It's been a bad joke. “