Q&A : Resignations and Abandonment

In short ‘no’. Abandonment is where an employee has no intention of returning to work. Before you can reasonably reach this conclusion, an employer is obliged to attempt to make contact with the employee. So you need to phone, text, email or any other normal channel of communication you use, to ask the employee what their intentions are. If they say they are returning, it is not abandonment. In this case, you are expecting him to return Monday, so you would need to wait until Monday to see if he shows up. That is not to say you can’t do anything about the employee who took unauthorised leave – you can take them through the disciplinary process which may result in their dismissal.

If Sally has paid sick leave owing, then yes you have to pay her unless you have evidence that demonstrates she wasn’t sick. The evidence needs to be more than ‘water cooler gossip’. If you believe you have evidence, you should put this to Sally asking for a response and say you are considering withholding sick leave unless you have evidence that she is sick, such as a medical certificate. Unfortunately, medical certificates are very easy to get.

If the employment agreement states you can pay the employee in lieu of notice, then yes, you can tell him to leave. However, you have to pay him out for the period of the unworked notice. If you don’t have a ‘payment in lieu’ clause then sending him away will need to be by mutual agreement. I would recommend having a conversation with him to ask what is going on and why he is behaving in this way, ultimately moving the conversation to asking if he wanted to leave earlier than the month. If he says yes, you can agree to a lesser notice period. Just make it very clear that the unworked notice will not be paid (if this is your intention) and make sure everything is in writing and signed by both you and the employee.

First step is to check the employment agreement for a wage deductions clause. A deduction must be agreed to in writing (except where the law requires it for such things as PAYE, Child Support etc). A clause in an employment agreement that is signed by the employee is written consent. If you have no such clause then you would need to ask Jonny for his consent in writing to make the deduction – it is highly unlikely he will agree, in which case you cannot make any deductions. If there is a deductions clause, it is very important to read it carefully and make sure it allows for a deduction under this scenario. As Jonny has returned the phone you will probably be unable to claim for the cost of replacing it. General, broad deductions clauses are not allowed so will not be able to cover every potential scenario. Even if a deduction is covered by a clause in the Employment Agreement an employee can withdraw their consent for a wage deduction to be made at any time and the employer must stop the deduction within two weeks or as soon as practical.