Employees are the fundamental mainstay in any organization who carry out all the work. Whether it is a department, team, marketing, Training, analysis, or service, every activity is assigned to the respective human personnel.
This makes employees an integral part of the organization. When all these are carried out hassle-free within the time, the work appreciation is marked for the employees and in turn the companies.
Absconding from company
An HR professional working in an IT firm is most familiar with the word ‘Absconding.’ It is mostly attributed to the booming job market, posing some unbeatable challenges to companies. Many HRs of companies face this situation in which they must run at the back of employees that run away without informing the management in any way.
If an employee leaves the company uninformed to any of the company’s higher officials either directly or through email communications, it is called Absconding. It is one of the most unethical and unprofessional ways of leaving the company. This creates a lot of mess in the organization as the employee leaves, leaving all the assigned roles and responsibilities.
If we investigate the reasons for employee absconding, they may seem genuine but the way they choose to overcome them is not a professional one to encourage. Some of the most heard reasons for absconding are:
- Underrated job roles are irrespective of the employee's skill set.
- Lesser pay scale concerning skills and experience.
- Lack of flexibility.
- Dissatisfaction with a job role or work environment or the working team/management.
- Extreme disinterest can be due to long-term continuation in the same role/technology with zero appreciation or recognition.
- False promises made during recruitment
- Better job prospects or Market outside the company
- Conflicts within team and organization
The employee with any of these reasons only may decide to abscond the company as he feels these to be a discomfort to discuss with the higher officials. To speak from the company's perspective, an absconded employee can be sometimes considered as the company’s failure of establishing strong and welcoming communication.
The Real Challenges With Absconding Employee
The problem of absconding is faced almost by many employers from different business areas. Any employee with this problem might face a lot of business issues. Along with this, the employer will have the chance of having claims for the company's roles and work culture. It is the employer who needs to act fair for the employer and the other communities of the company.
Employee absconding creates several gaps among all the people behind the effort in the organization and is important among the team of absconded employees. This becomes a new headache for HR professionals to fill this gap and continue the workflow.
The first and foremost challenge an HR professional faces from absconding employees is to trace back their points of contact. As the employee plans to leave the company without fulfilling the actual formalities of relieving, the first thing they do is cut off all contact with the company and its employees. This makes the scenario a bit more difficult to get all the data and information transferred to the next official.
In general, companies invest a lot in terms of time, training, and knowledge sharing to make the employee suitable for the company’s requirements. Training, incentives, employee benefits, or fresher skill enhancement programs are some of the common essentials every company spends on for their employees from the day of joining. When an employee absconds, all this investment made on that resource accounts for zero returns. This may not lead to maximum losses in figures but is accountable to the misused time investment on a wrong resource.
However, employee absconding is not only limited to the working employees but also the newly appointed employees. In some cases, the candidates whose joining is confirmed with the company and all the commencements scheduled, don’t turn up at the office without informing the officials.
Affect & implications of an absconding employee on the Company
The unauthorized absence of any of the employees shows effects on the business flow and workflow of the team. It adversely impacts the project flow and deliverability.
The key areas that immediately affect the company are:
1. The resource loss from an assigned project/product:
This accounts for the minimum to a maximum loss for both the company and the client. The company has to immediately find a suitable resource to fill the team with the required personnel. If the delay in recruiting happens, there will be a delay in project deliverability. This demands the time required which affects the cost of the project.
This also implies to the client. As long as the resource allocation to his project/product is delayed, the particular department's work slows down or sometimes completely stops. The business challenges of clients may affect.
2. Employers may face allegations:
The absconded employee may project the past employer in a wrong way with false information. This affects both the company and its fellow employees.
Legal action against the employee for not serving the notice period in India
Any Employer will have all rights to take action on the employee who absconded. Until the employer has strong sources about the employee's duration of the break and the reasons stated, the employee can take action. But dealing with this issue is complicated functionally and legally. Every employee will have the right to claim his leaves under certain circumstances. The employer has to fully furnish the employee leave policy and include it in the offer letter.
Maintain the proper track of employee leave records. If it is found that the employee was unauthorisedly absent on several occasions, it cannot be the subject of the least priority. Irrespective of the assigned level of employment hierarchy, the employee should fulfill all his duties following the company's norms stated. In this context, if any employee takes leave for one or two days, he cannot be reported as absconded and initiating extreme steps is also unwarranted.
If the employer specified the “lieu of” conditions in the offer letter related to the notice period or payment instead of notice, the employee has to serve either of these. If the employee refuses to serve the notice period, evaluate the reasons against your notice period terms. Now,
you can initiate the legal procedures.
Firstly, seek payment instead of notice from the employee. If the employee denies this, the employer can legally approach the labor or civil court to proceed.
Absconding mail letter format by HR
The first step any employer takes on finding the employee absconding is to reach all the points of contact the employee has provided. If none of the contacts is a respondent, the employer can try to reach the employee by sending formal notice emails to respond. The last step is to send the official Absconding mail letter.
An absconding mail letter is a notice sent by the employer to his fellow employee who absconded from executing and appropriately winding the assigned roles. The HR department of the company, after clearly assessing the employee’s reason for leaving, can send the legal notice to address the company’s rules before absconding. If the employee did not respond within 15 business days, the company has all the rights to send the legal notice attaching the required documents and details.
Refer to the Absconding mail letter format
Legal action against an employer for not giving relieving letter
If the employee neither absconded nor was fired or terminated and served the notice period or paid in lieu of relieving, the employer cannot deny issuing the required relieving documents. The employee can take any of these steps if he is true to all the employment terms as long as you are in the company.
Try to communicate with the HR department or higher officials of the company through email or phone contacts or by meeting them in person.
If the employer did not respond, send a legal notice mail from the advocate addressing your issue.
Then the issue is forwarded to the higher sections of law and the employer is to provide relevant reasons for not showing up for the employee.
How to abscond from the company - Google Analysis
Surprisingly, according to Google, there are thousands of people that search for how to abscond from a company every month. This clearly states how common employee absconding has
become. Absconding from the company affects both the employee and employer in the same grade.
For the employee, it may create an impression of unprofessional and unethical behavior. This will impact his further career. If the next employer asks to submit the relieving documents from the earlier employer, the employee finds it a bit difficult. However, most employers are conducting employee background checks to evaluate the professional history of the candidate.
On the other hand, employers also face challenges in immediately recruiting the new resource and explaining the things to continue with and train the new employee. This impacts the time and cost of the company. Hence, we as an experienced team suggest companies conduct in-depth background checks before appointing a candidate.
Conclusion
Proquest, being in the field of employee background verification has seen many companies reaching us find the best way to deal with absconding employees. It is a delegate issue to be taken forward to ensure the company’s credibility. With all these experiences put together, we ensure to maintain all the delicacies.