Abandonment of employment is the term used when an employee is absent from work for consecutive days, without communicating to their employer the reason for their absence.
When you’re a business owner if an employee fails to attend work without prior notification or a valid reason, you should follow certain steps before assuming the employee has no intention of returning
The first step is to attempt to contact your employee. It is possible personal matters, an unexpected emergency, or accident has occurred, and your employee is unable to contact you directly.
Contacting the employee
If you have not heard from an employee, you should attempt to contact them.
- Call them on their home phone, mobile phone or any other contact numbers. Leave messages for them to make contact as soon as possible.
- Employee records should contain emergency contact numbers – try them.
- Write in their employee file how and when the attempted call was made, including notes on any voice messages left.
- Make a reasonable number of attempts over several days.
- If the employee gets in contact, ask questions to find out whether they intend to return to work or if they have a valid reason for their absence.
If no contact can be made, then a letter should be mailed to the employee’s residential address of record, requesting them to contact your business within a specified timeframe. Include in the letter who the employee must contact and advise failure to respond may be interpreted as abandonment of employment.
Ensure the letter is sent by registered post, so you are able to track its delivery and confirm it has been received by your employee.
Resignation and abandonment of employment
When an employee has resigned and given the required notice as outlined in their employment contract but chooses to not show for their last day of work without notice, this is typically considered abandonment of employment.
Even though it’s their last day, employers should still attempt to contact the employee. Only after reasonable attempts have failed and the employee hasn't responded or provided a valid excuse for their absence can you conclude the employment has been abandoned.
Example 1:
When an employee doesn't complete their notice period in full.
Consider an employee – let’s call him Darrel – resigned from their role and gave verbal and written notice. On the second last day of their notice period, they leave their access pass and company owned equipment on their desk without notifying their manager or colleagues. This signals no intention of working the final day of their notice period, which is confirmed by them not turning up that day. All attempts to contact Darrel were ignored.
Example 2:
When a contractor abruptly leaves and doesn't return.
In a case of a contractor – let’s call them Garry – After working for several weeks, a review of the projects he was working on was conducted and multiple errors were identified. Following a meeting where the errors were highlighted and the request made to correct them Garry abruptly packed his personal items from his desk and left the office, handing in his access pass to the reception desk. Multiple attempts were made to contact the contractor. All went unanswered.
Example 3:
When a new employee has multiple sick days in theor first couple of weeks and extra long lunch and other breaks.
An employee – let’s call her Samantha – commenced her new role with a business. In her first week Samantha called in sick on three consecutive days. In the following three weeks she would take extra-long lunch breaks in addition to multiple long breaks throughout the day. She would often arrive late and leave early. At the end of her third week Samantha left work saying she would see everyone Monday. She never returned. Over several days multiple attempts were made to contact Samantha via phone, personal email and text message. No reply was received.
What do I do if I cannot contact the employee?
It’s advised employee handbooks, and employment agreements contain an abandonment of employment clause. However, even with this clause, as the business owner you’re obliged to try and find out where the employee is and if they intend to return to work.
If a number of days have passed and you have not been able to contact the employee and they have not contacted you, you can start the abandonment process to end the employment relationship:
- Advise the employee by phone, email and in writing to their last known address, that their employment is in jeopardy. Let them know unless they make contact by a certain date, their employment will be considered terminated by reason of abandonment. Quote the relevant clause from their employment agreement.
- If there is still no response by the stipulated date, advise the employee by phone, email and in writing that, in accordance with previous communication, their employment is now considered terminated by reason of abandonment. The employer should then process any final pay.
It is your responsibility to thoroughly investigate an employee’s absence before deciding your employee has abandoned their employment.
Being proactive in your attempts to contact your employee and adhering to procedural fairness and transparency is critical to mitigate the possibility of facing an unfair dismissal claim.
Abandonment of employment can be a challenging situation to manage. Contact Peninsula for expert advice on abandonment of employment.
The information in this article is of general information current at the time of publication. Please note the contents of this article and website and any information provided by our advice team do not constitute legal advice and are not intended to be a substitute for legal or other professional advice and should not be relied upon as such. Your specific circumstances or changes in circumstances after publication may affect the completeness or accuracy of this information. You should seek legal advice or other professional advice in relation to any particular matters as it relates to you or your business.
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