An employee is regarded as deserted once he has been absent without permission or communication to his employer for 5 consecutive working days without good reason or notification and with the employee’s intention unknown to the employer.
Once this has happened the employer needs to do the following:
- Complete the Desertion Diary by attempting to contact and find the employee, personal contact, questions to co-employees and correspondence on company letterhead.
- Send correspondence/letter to the employee on one of your company letterheads that stipulates that he is deserting and must return to the workplace. This can be sent either via registered post, by hand (personal service) or through a courier service alternatively a reliable colleague to hand-deliver this correspondence/letter it might be more effective to ensure that the employee has received a copy.
- If the employee has not responded to any of the above after 3 to 5 business days then you send out a Notice of desertion and a Disciplinary Hearing. The employee must be allowed sufficient time (21 days) to collect the notice. This notice can be sent as described above but preferably hand-delivered in person.
If the notice was not delivered – This employee will remain an employee and must be kept on, your records even after the 21 days have lapsed. You may mark his status as “status unknown”. You will not be able to terminate his service and inform all relevant statutory institutions accordingly;
If the notice was delivered – Kindly contact your nearest SEESA office to notify us of the date of your hearing. A legal advisor will be allocated to chair the hearing and possibly terminate the employee’s service if the circumstances justify a dismissal.
In the event of personal service kindly, ensure that the colleague who affected the service is available to testify.