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Posted By Andy
Dear all,
If someone is absent due to industrial injury and has not contacted the company for one month despite numerous attempts to contact them, can employment be terminated if within employment terms and conditions?
Thanks and regards
Andy.
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
The employment can be terminated - the question is whether it is fair dismissal.
Bob
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Posted By Andy
Thanks for the reply Bob,
I know that it can and is being done as a matter of course. I wonder what period of time would be regarded as reasonable. No contact for a month is a long time.
If this person were unable to contact the employer, well that is fine in retrospect and decisions may be reversed later but surely lines must be drawn somewhere?
Thanks again
Andrew
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
Yes, but it depends on the illness and it may be that the employee is taking an extended break with relatives. Questions like Are you just using standard mail? How often are you telephoning? Have you spoke to friends or relatives? spring to mind. 4 weeks for what may have been a serious injury seems a long time to you but is a doctor's note still in force, and do you have rules requiring regular contact? You could even be set up in order to create the current impasse.
Don't jump to dismissal as there is an arguement that this person is temporarily disabled and you are thus discriminating, particularly if normal work performance is good.
Bob
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Posted By Andy
Hi Bob,
The rules for communication during absence are clear, as are consequences for failing to inform etc.
Once a doctors note has run out, as it has in this case for nearly a month, communication in the form of a letter or TPC is needed, in this case the person cannot be contacted at all.
After a month of NO contact reasonableness has to come in and say the person does not want the job. As previously stated, if in retrospect you learn that the person was unable to contact an employer, a decision could be reversed, however it takes some communication from the employee to instigate this process which has not happened in this case.
Andrew
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Posted By David Brede
What Bob says is quite right. The issue will be one of fair dismissal.
If there is an agreed process, which you are intimating is the case for communicating during periods of sickness and you as the employer is following it and the employee is not, then the employee is frustrating his or her contract of employment.
However if you have not already done so I would visit the last known address to see if he/she still lives there or is there some other rational explanation for the lack of communication.
David
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Posted By Dyfed Rowlands
Surely you should seek the advice of a solicitor before deciding on what action to take. Better safe than sorry.
Regard
Dyfed
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Posted By Mark Jarman
Andy,
Would suggest that this will depend on the communication procedures outlined to staff in their terms and conditions of employment of staff handbook.
If the member of staff is responsible for maintaining contact with a specified person (i.e. manager or HR department) and a specified frequency (i.e. weekly) then dismissal would seem appropriate.
If this is not clear, then yes, a solicitors advice would be a sensible choice.
Regards
Mark
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Posted By Laurie
You know your own employees best, of course, but this person may live alone, and have been in hospital for a month!
Laurie
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