From India, Bengaluru



I am not an expert on this topic, but faced a similar situation in our office.
What we did was sent a notice to report to office on a mutually agreed to date via registered post. If the employee agrees to report to finish the handover process, all is well and good. Incase she does not you can terminate her employment due to her being absconding, and make a recovery of your equipment from her full and final settlement, as per company policy.
Also care must be taken to provide a comfortable working environment when she comes to the office to complete her handover, if she does.
Please take an opinion from 2-3 seasoned professionals before taking any action.
From India, Mumbai
From India, Kolkata
I would talk on the subject covering "Legal Formalities" involved in a situation like the one here ....
It seems that the Employee is trying to play a little "Hide & Seek" by not attending your calls but is recording all her points through mails sent to you. Under such circumstances it would by advisable to release "News Paper" classifieds in one National Daily and in one Local Daily mentioning therein clearly
- that she (name of the employee) has resigned from the services of the Company on ...... (put date here) that has been accepted by your Management vide Letter No. ...... Dated ...... and she has been asked to properly handover equipment etc. for settlement of her Full & Final dues as per company policy.
- that she is neither responding to your telephone calls nor contacting you in person, but is sending mails putting forward her own conditions for settlement that is not acceptable to the company.
- that she is requested the to contact Mr ....... at ........ (company address) within 7 days from the date of issue of publication failing which the company would be compelled to recover the cost of the "Equipment" from her final dues.
You may proceed there after to settle her dues in your way. The Publication as above would cover you in any Legal Forum.
Regards,
Soumitra Sengupta
From India, Pune
From India, Bengaluru
From India, Bengaluru
The other learned members have given advise from the legal point of view. My reply is from the management science point of view. There is one important sentence in your post. It says "we have received only one email which says send my final statement to the bank and then I will submit the equipment."
Now my question is why employee felt need to hedge the office equipment to get the terminal benefits? Why the employee in question is not ready to trust you? Irrespective of the reasons of the exit, are the employees treated fairly?
While you may sue to the employee for unauthorised retention of the company's property, and you could win court case also but the underlying fact of loss trust cannot be ignored. It could be one-off case but even if one employee looks at management suspiciously and resorts to some trade-offs then this is a manifestation of loss of credibility. Sooner you take steps to restore the credibility the better. How to create environment of trust is far more larger issue than what are you looking at.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar
From India, Bangalore