Question

Hi, fellow HR practitioners,

We have this staff who joined us in June 2018.

(1) He failed to take up added responsibilities such as fetching overseas visitors and claimed that he has no money to pay for the cab fare (usually we will reimburse to him).

(2) He challenged his immediate superior and failed to obey instructions.

(3) As our President made a visit to our head office on 20 Aug 2018, all staff are required to report to the office at 8.30am. He failed to obey instructions and reached the office at 8.55 am instead. On the same day, he went for early lunch before official lunch hours.

The management is very disappointed with his job performance and work attitude and HR called him to counsel him on the above. In view that he does not fulfill the requirements, the Company does not wish him to continue his service. A text message was sent to his immediate superior "so you have terminated me as of today, please settle all my payments as I won't be serving any notices". He did not turn up to work at all.- Missing in Action.

Please note that our Company did not serve him any termination letter. Under these circumstances, what would you advise on the matter?

Thank you.

Helen

Reply 1

If the company does not terminate him and he MIA on his own, he should pay notice in-lieu, depending on your contract with him.

Atoo

Reply 2

There might be various action based on your country local labor act or even your organization HR policy. But in normal circumstance, we can discharge an employee from his/her job who failed to obey organization instruction and leave his/her work without proper reason or information.

You can send a written warning letter to join the office to complete one month notice period (which he will not accept) or else you can send him a termination letter (mentioning the reason what you have mentioned in your post) effective from the date he discontinued his work and settle his account till that date. This is the practice of our country and organization.

PP

Reply 3

As a good employment practice, you should attempt to contact the employee to fulfill his / her employment and serve the notice as per stated in the employment agreement / LOA.

Formal advice such as letter and also message should be sent to him via his last official recorded contact number for two purposes - Record as evidence and also to ensure that he receives the advice from the company.

In event, he still refuses to serve the notice due and the company decides to terminate his employment, the amount due to him should be paid after the deduction of his notice in lieu of the company.

You can also consider contractual dismissal and pay him to notice in lieu, encash his leave balance if any as goodwill.

Elvin

Reply 4

Apparently, this staff is under probation from June 2018 to date. Follow your employment terms and conditions to release him. He failed to meet your company requirement in his job scope. Challenging a supervisor is view seriously which you could use to release him before his due confirmation date.

Rose

Reply 5

If there’s so much mismatch in job expectancy, better for him to depart. If during probation; warning, warning, sack. There is no need to indicate a specific reason for ending probationary trials. Just fulfill the notice period mutually agreed. But fetching guests without a car is expensive for massive taxi trips to east airports and hotel etc. Consider taxi credit card or cash advance would ease his load if that is genuine and if his pay is low, that might be a challenge for him in high-cost Singapore.

Dksw