How Should HR Handle Unresponsive Employees During Notice Periods?

I need your suggestions. I am working for a GPS-based company, where for the last 3-4 months, one sales employee has not been performing well. His reporting manager has already given him a one-month notice period through email, but he has not responded to the email. Should I send him a hard copy via speed post regarding the same? If yes, what should be the format? In such situations, what should be the HR's role concerning documentation?

I am waiting for a response.

Regards,
Anuj Baliyan

Yes, please send him a registered letter and then offer him time to respond. You might find many templates for termination letters here in our community. Please include the clauses for performance that you have found.

Do mention the complete process for relieving, so that the employee may collect the full and final settlement along with the relieving documents.

A request, please do not mention 'termination' anywhere in his relieving documents. Putting the blame of non-performance on an employee might backfire on you as an employer. Moreover, that employee might find a better career somewhere else.

Thank you!

The reply by Ms. (Cite Contribution) is appropriate and perfect. The entire role is played by the HR department. Try to make the process hassle-free. Send him the letter along with the speed post and AD. Prepare the exit process for the departing employees.

Hope this is clear for you.

Regards,
Shaikh Abedeen
Human Resources Department

This is not the way that an employee can directly be terminated. The manager has to first take his feedback on the same in a written form, explaining why he is not performing. Then the manager has to give him time to improve his performance. If the employee is still not performing, then a termination letter can be issued.

Now, as the manager has already sent a termination letter via email and the employee is not responding, the termination letter can be sent to his postal address via registered post, with a slip maintained for record-keeping. This process should be repeated at least twice if the employee does not respond at all.

However, please confirm if the employee is reporting to work or not. The above steps can be taken if the employee neither responds nor reports for work.

Best regards,
Sunita Dhoundiyal

Questions Regarding Notice Issuance

Why did his reporting authority give him the notice and not the HR? Is there a policy in your company regarding the same? What objective measures did the reporting authority use to conclude a lack of performance? It is prudent to also seek an explanation from the reporting authority regarding his role in first trying to improve performance. I have seen many instances of first-line managers firing juniors to cover up their own inadequacies, and hence objectivity regarding all such decisions is required. In case no procedures were followed, how have you ensured that the departing employee does not hold the company accountable for arbitrary and biased action? Has natural justice been denied?

Procedure for Sending Documents

In case all procedures have been followed, and the employee is incommunicado, you can send the said documents by Registered Post with AD or Speed Post to the address as on HR records. These can be sent twice. The document, as already advised above, needs to be as detailed as possible without getting into vindictiveness. In fact, it remains prudent to be helpful towards a departing employee. A failure here can be a leader there. Hope this helps by raising questions in the right context.

Executor has rightly brought out many points. To assume that the employee was not performing is wrong without any basis. Does the company have a formal performance measure? Is it a skill problem, a resource problem, or an attitude problem? Did company officials do anything to improve or know the reasons?

Simply going along with the sales manager is against natural justice. That's why HR professionals are called stooges. You will come across many such cases. So follow a proper procedure although it will take time. But employees would have confidence. It will save you and the company from future litigation.

Regards,
Rajesh

Presumably, the so-called non-performing sales employee and his so-called boss are separated by thousands of miles and cannot communicate or locate each other except by way of one-way email. Now, that's very interesting for a GPS company!

Process for Employee Removal

If any employee has to be removed, you must follow a process to be fair and be seen as fair. You can go over to meet and confront him at his location, and so can his boss, unless the cost does not justify the effort. In which case, there should be no post here!

Handling Abandonment of Employment

If the employee has abandoned employment, you have to follow another process. Without going into the fairness and merit of removal, all I can say is those who do not execute this with surgical precision and panache often face post-operation complications!

Good luck!

You can make it a case of "voluntary abandonment of service" under the certified/Model Standing Orders if he is not traceable at all and remains incommunicado. The letter must have been sent by the HR manager and NOT by the salesman's functional boss. You can now remedy the defect by sending a fresh letter yourself.

Regards,
Ramdas S. Iyer
Director, Chidambaram Shipcare Pvt Ltd
Chennai

I appreciate the inputs of Executor, Papillon, and Prasad62. Their opinions have been very objective and were not influenced by the statements of the querists.

Role of HR in Employee Management

An HR, also called a Business HR, should not be influenced and should not neglect their basic duties, responsibilities, and due process. If the Reporting Manager can hire and fire employees at will, what is the purpose of having an HR? Just to look after leave applications of employees? Does the company have an appraisal system? Does the company have a policy regarding non-performers? Is there a way and system of managing exits? If line managers are doing everything, there is no need for having an HR. No wonder, in some small companies, HR is required to do all miscellaneous jobs except HRM.

The questions above are not to belittle the role of HR; but, on the contrary, to strengthen HR functions through introspection and deliberation.

Warm regards.

You cannot just terminate any employee only because they are not performing. There has to be some proper documentation or process to terminate an employee; otherwise, the employer will be in trouble if that employee takes legal action.

In my opinion, if any person is not performing, they should be given a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) for a particular duration, which has to be agreed upon by both the employee and their manager. In the PIP review, the frequency needs to be decided, and the review should happen on the agreed-upon date. Review feedback/observations need to be shared with the employee.

If their performance still does not improve, then you can ask them to resign or terminate their service, as long as you have created valid documentation signed by both parties.

All these decisions need to be made jointly by HR and the respective department head.