Abandonment of employment is when an employee does not show up to the workplace for a specified number of days and has failed to inform the employer about his/her absenteeism or if they no longer want to work.
It is up to the employer how many consecutive absenteeism days are considered abandonment of employment but the standard is if the employee declines or fails to show up to the workplace for three consecutive days.
However, it is recommended to be attentive and careful while concluding the no-call no-show is the abandonment of the job. It is recommended because sometimes there are some severe situations where the employee is unable to inform the employer. There can be some serious medical crises which make them unable to inform the employees thus, it is mandatory to have a detailed policy which helps to handle different scenarios for job abandonment.
ABANDONMENT OF EMPLOYMENT POLICY AND HOW DOES IT HELP TO HANDLE IT?
A abandonment of employment policy is a document which discusses in detail the scenarios that can be considered as the abandonment of the job in the organization. For instance, it must be clarified in the document how many consecutive days of absenteeism and no-call-no-show are considered as the abandonment of a job and further discusses different scenarios that may occur and what will be the policies of the organization in those scenarios. The policy document must be given to the employees along with a form to sign as they have understood and accepted the policies regarding the matter.
Following are some points that might be included in the policy document:
- There must be a notification for the leave notice, which makes clear how many notices an employee has to submit when he/she fails to attend work. This also includes how many consecutive days the employee can skip work before it is considered abandonment of work.
- There must be a clarification of the disciplinary process that must be taken if the employee fails to inform the assigned person within the given period.
- There must be some points that make it clear if the employee is unable to inform about the absenteeism who can inform the organization or the employer on the behalf of the employee.
- There must be a detailed discussion which concludes how and under what conditions the employer will terminate the employment based on job abandonment.
NO-CALL-NO-SHOW TERMINATION
An employer can terminate the employee on a no-call-no-show basis, but an abandonment of the job is always not the case in this termination, an employee can do this from time to time such as once every eight months or so and this will not lead to job abandonment. However, this will create problems in the organization.
The employer can proceed with the no-call-no-show termination after doing everything possible to address the issue with the employee, following are some possible procedures that the employer can go through before proceeding toward no-call-no-show termination:
Contact:
Try to get in touch with the employee to take note of why they are not coming and what are the reasons for the no-call-no-show
Act According to the policies:
The employer has to act as the policies are discussed whether or not the employee is a very old member of the organization or the employee is best in his field and has not done the no-call-no-show yet. There must be no “it is his/her first-time no-call-no-show” considered.
Consider the problem:
The employer needs to address the issue about the negative impact the organization is facing and must try to contact the employee and let them know the consequences that will happen as written in the policy.
Make reports on the incidents:
The incidents, the issues, everything must be paper reported and documented for record purposes in the future.
Bring to finish:
If the employee does not respond to the employer or the organization and continues the no-call-no-show, then it is time to implement the policy.
Conclusion:
An employer must do everything possible before any type of termination whether they terminate the employee on the grounds of abandonment of job or not. After concluding and deciding to terminate the employee there should be clear communication to avoid confusion and fallacy.