My employee has walked out without giving notice!
by Claire Stewart on 09/06/08 at 11:11 am
3 comments
It amazes me how often one hears about staff members who just don’t arrive at work on a Monday. When management finally tracks them down, they’re informed (with no embarrassment or remorse!) that the individual has a new job and won’t be coming back.
Do these people not understand the importance of good references!
This used to be common with blue collar positions, but it’s now happening at higher level positions as well. A client of mine had this exact scenario happen last month with their bookkeeper / payroll administrator. You can imagine the havoc that this created.
So how should you address this proactively?
- The first thing to do it to ensure that your employment contract contains a proper notice period, usually one calendar month. It can be up to three months for higher level positions that are harder to fill.
- Secondly, you should include a phrase like the following: ‘Should the employee fail to give proper notice of termination in terms of this provision, it is specifically agreed by both parties that the employer may deduct from the employee’s remuneration or other monies (such as accrued leave) due to the employee, an amount equal to the remuneration that the employee would have earned during the remaining period of the required notice.’
This means that if your employee walks out after working the first week of the month, you are entitled to deduct the next three weeks of income from any monies owed to her / him, i.e. remuneration and/or leave pay.
Hopefully this should act as a deterrent in terms of employees not giving adequate notice. If not, at least the money can pay towards hiring a temp, a recruitment agent and training costs.
Claire Stewart is the founder of PeopleWise, an HR and Employment consulting service. Like Neo in the Matrix, Claire sees through the convoluted mess of SA employment law and makes sense of it for you, loyal Ideate reader. View more articles by Claire Stewart.
Lynne Roux
Sep 22nd, 2008
The info relating to Discipline and Poor performance was helpfull, would like to know after hearing procedure when do you issue the written warning. Is it given after the heraring and after informing the employee.
Gregory Benjamin
Feb 19th, 2009
I am on the other end of the stick, My contract states that i must provide a 2 Month notice period. However not many employers are willing to wait more than a month for new employees to start, also I loose out in terms of salary for a month when I should be getting more had i joined the new company. How can I get out of the 2 months notice period? what can my employer do if I dont honor the entire notice period.
Claire Stewart
Feb 19th, 2009
Hi Greg,
THe only way you can reduce your notice period is by agreement with your employer. If you don’t honour the full notice period, your employer is not entitled to withheld moneys owed to you (such as annual leave) unless there is a written agreement signed by both parties to that effect. However it would be unlikely that you would be able to approach them for a reference in the future and any prospective employers/recruitment agencies who were doing a past employment check on you will be talking to a disgruntled ex-employer.