Abandonment of Employment
Abandonment of employment happens when an employee is absent from work for an extended period, generally three days or more, and they fail to notify you or give a good reason why they are not at work.
If an employee isn’t able to get to work and can’t let you know, they are supposed to get someone to tell you on their behalf so you know what’s happened. But there could be many reasons why an employee may not turn up to work but has not informed you. For example, they could be in hospital after an accident with no relative or friend to contact you.
All your employment agreements should contain a clause on abandonment of employment. However, even with a clause you are obliged to try to find out where the employee is and whether they intend coming back to work.
Contact the employee
If you haven’t heard from them, make an effort to contact them.
- Call them on their home phone, mobile phone or any other contact numbers you may have. Leave messages for them to contact you as soon as possible.
- Your employee records should contain emergency contact numbers – try them.
- Jot down in their employee file, how and when you tried to reach them including notes on any messages you left.
- Make a reasonable number of attempts over 3-5 days.
- If you do manage to make contact, ask questions to find out whether the employee has actually abandoned the employment or if they have a valid reason for their absence.
- Before you decide that the employee has abandoned their job, it’s important to listen to the employee with an open mind and consider any other information you may have about the absence, such as medical certificates, or conversations with family members of the employee.
Advising the employee
If a number of days have passed and you still haven’t been able to contact the employee and they have not made any contact whatsoever with you follow these steps:
- Advise the employee by phone, email and in writing to their last known address, that their employment is in jeopardy. Let them know that unless they contact you by a certain time, you’ll regard their employment as terminated by reason of abandonment. Quote the relevant clause from their employment agreement.
- If there is still no response, advise the employee by phone, email and in writing that, in accordance with your previous communication, you now regard their employment terminated by reason of abandonment.
It is vitally important that you keep a record of all attempted contact and correspondence so that should there be in dispute in the future you have it all well documented. Remember, if you are going to end an employment relationship, you must act fairly and reasonably and have a good reason.
