What An Employer Do , If His Employee Leave The Company Without Notice Period

Hi, I belong to a middle-class family. I started my company with a working capital of 20 lakhs rupees, but my employees cheated me. For the first three months, they have not performed at all. When my manager asked them about the performance review, they left the company without serving the notice period. I suffered very badly financially. What can we do to such employees? Please suggest.

It was properly mentioned in their letter of appointment that they have to serve a one-month notice period or pay one month's salary in lieu.

Hi Nadeem,

If there is any amount left out in their salary or their leaves can be compensated, even if they don't have any leaves, we can't do anything about this. As you said, it was only three months, and even the PF cannot be applicable for them. It's a worrisome issue that you are facing now. If you go by legal means, frankly speaking, it's a waste of money as well as time. My only advice is to be careful during recruitment about whom you are selecting.

Thanks,
Shivam

As an employer, please try to find out the reasons why people are interested in leaving the organization and why they feel compelled to abscond from their services. If you could prevent this, I am sure it will help you create a better working culture for your organization.

Legal action should be the last resort in the above cases.

Send them a legal notice through a reputable lawyer and initiate appropriate legal action against them. In the meantime, hold onto any dues payable to them. It is evident that they have taken undue advantage of your newness to the business. Please contact me on my mobile, and I will provide you with further advice on this.

Vasant Nair
09717726667

Please conduct the exit interview and ask the departing employee why they are leaving the organization. Make note of the reasons they provide for leaving. Ensure to take these into consideration while selecting a new candidate.

Dear Mr. Nadeem,

After three months, you or your manager inquired about performance. During this time, there were likely several meetings such as daily, weekly, or monthly with employees. In these meetings, you should have noticed signs that something may be going wrong. Please analyze all aspects and take care in the future.

Thank you.

Dear Mr. Nadeem,

I agree with Shrinisar. It appears that you might not have been involved in the day-to-day activities of your business since the beginning and have depended on the employees. With a new business, it is all the more important that you maintain some personal involvement in the day-to-day business affairs and preferably review the business on a weekly basis. Right now, getting into legal hassles with those employees will only be a waste of your limited resources and time. I suggest you please be careful in the future.

Hello,

At the outset, I am in full sympathy with you over the situation you have landed in! Having said that, permit me, based on the brief information provided in your post, to make a few observations.

1. Extracting work performance is the employer's responsibility. He cannot blindly rely on the "goodwill" of the employees engaged by him.
2. If for three months the workmen have not performed to your expectations, what was the supervision busy with otherwise?
3. What exactly transpired between your Manager and the workmen?
4. If you have not employed too many people, just why the dialogue could not take place during the period they were on your rolls or at least when they had to be questioned for non-performance?
5. You are a member of the private sector industry. The rights and obligations of the parties (employers and employees) are primarily limited by the stipulations in the contract of employment—meaning the letter of appointment and/or letter of confirmation and/or relevant case law on the subject of employment/non-employment and breach of contract.
6. Labor law has no remedy. You may proceed against your workmen in a civil court of law on the issue of breach of contract. But you must know how long such litigations are and how the lawyers will make money, that what you MAY at the end get as compensation (that is if at all you do!)
7. Your time, talents, and resources will be wasted in pursuit of seeking to punish your employees who have acted in breach of trust.

I am NOT shielding your employees in any way, but I wish to draw your attention to a simple fact that the cost of the remedy will be way too high in comparison to the disease, and in such a case will, in all likelihood, be uneconomical! Your employees have undoubtedly behaved in a disgusting manner, and therefore they cannot be condoned. But it will be easier for you to put the sad episode behind you, start afresh, focus on competent man management skills, and rise to realize your dreams through smart work.

I have not understood how you have suffered very badly because your employees have left the company without serving the notice period!

Finally, one must remember that often not bad workmen but bad supervision causes more problems for the organization. If you would like to share more details on the situation, please ask questions, and I will answer to the best of my ability.

Regards,
Samvedan
August 14, 2011

Hello Nadeem,

Samvedan has put things in the right perspective and hit the 'Bull's Eye', so to say. While agreeing with Samvedan, let me also add that such situations for a 'first-time entrepreneur' are not uncommon—hailing from the middle-class only adds to the woes. But that's a part of the learning process—albeit a costly one.

First and foremost, please begin to learn a few things/aspects of conducting your business.

1. You are running a commercial venture—not charity. So the very first moment you notice something that's not running as per plans, take action—for which 'Continuous Supervision' becomes primary, the key word being 'Continuous'. In a way, I would blame you and your manager for this situation. Forgive my use of these words, but what was your manager doing until you realized about the performance?

2. I wouldn't use the words you used: my employees cheated me. Please learn to take responsibilities for your actions. Your choice of people was bad, which resulted in such a situation. Just learn from this experience and move on—if you begin to think in terms of 'legal action', etc., at a time when all your focus, time, energy, efforts, and obviously money have to be towards restarting your business and stabilizing fast, just think if 'legal way' is the right direction to go.

3. Next, it seems as though the daily/weekly/monthly targets weren't properly laid out for the employees when they joined. Else such situations could have been caught much earlier and, more importantly, before all the employees formed a cartel. As a general thumb rule, while it is good to devise plans/rules/policies that prevent such situations from arising at all in the first place, also remember that they would still crop up from time to time—however much you tune up your hiring practices and reporting structures, you will still end up hiring one or two such characters. So from the management's perspective, when refining your policy framework, try to focus more on 'how to handle' such situations if and when they arise.

4. As far as possible—until you stabilize—try not to hire too many people known to you directly (especially relatives) over whom you may not have too much of an official/formal control at the working level.

5. Since you haven't mentioned your area of business and what damage your ex-employees did, I wouldn't be able to suggest anything regarding that aspect. But just bear in mind, in general terms, that there will always be multiple ways to conduct one's business leading to the same goal. Take it from me—I will bet my last paisa on this. You only need to do some brainstorming to come out with the alternative plans of action—and put them into practice. That's all.

And lastly, please note that I haven't written these lines on a theoretical basis. They are from personal experience.

All the best.

Regards,
TS

Dear Mr. Nadeem,

While selecting people, you should take care, or else you can make a bond for some time period. Regular check-ups should be conducted to monitor the work environment.

Thank you.

Dear Nadeem,

Everyone has covered many things. Two more pointers from my side:

1) This is a learning opportunity for you. A good one. Now you'll be better.

2) A small business cannot afford to make mistakes like big businesses, so be on your toes next time. Also, what were you thinking when asking for performance feedback after 3 months? Why not every day?

Read this book: "Profits Aren't Everything, They're The Only Thing."

Regards,
Gaurav Kapil

Hi Nadeem,

If your company is registered and you have mentioned in the offer letter about the notice period, then you can take some legal actions against those employees.

If you are hiring people next time, make sure you assign them targets and provide them with a salary on a 60% and 40% basis. This way, you will not incur losses in the future.

Thank you,
Rafiq Mohd. Bhatti
09619964001

Dear Nadeem,

Your non-performers left the company without serving the notice period. Even if they had served the notice period, nothing would have changed in terms of performance, and you would have wasted money on them. Unfortunately, we are not fortunate to have grateful people as our employers or employees. Stay focused on your goals; these kinds of heartbreaks are very common indeed.

Warm wishes,
Elizabeth Paul

Hello Nadeem,

Elizabeth Paul has put across a totally different and excellent way of looking at your problem - very practical (devoid of any emotional baggage) and realistic too. She has also, indirectly, pointed out and confirmed the actual problem that you need to be addressing, rather than whether to go legal, etc.

Looking at this issue from yet another angle, there's a saying: There's nothing called 'coincidence' in life. Everything happens for a reason - we only need to figure out 'what's the reason' he had in view to make us face any situation.

In this specific case, I guess it could be to make you learn the lesson of handling people - quite possibly at a much lesser cost than you would be facing had this problem come when your company was... let's say... 100 strong. Hope you get the point.

All the Best.

Regards,
TS

As advised earlier, the remedies for this problem are more costly than the disease. I think effective supervision and daily performance reviews are good tools to avoid such issues.