Employee absconding- from which day of absence should one be considered absconding?

As per company policy, any employee who is absent for more than 3 days without prior notice is termed as absconding employee. However, initial 3 days are marked as LOP. Should those days be entered as Absence days or LOP days? And if the employee doesn't return to work, should he be considered absconding from 1st day of absence or 4th day of absence? Need advice from HR professionals. Thanks in advance.

1st day of absence would be reckoned as starting point in this case.

so if we run the Absconding action in the system from the first day of absence, would we still stand compliant when we state one if called absconded from 4th day of uninformed absence?

To my mind if an employee was absconding for 10 days.
It will not be treated as 3 LOP and 7 days absconding.
He will loose his pay for all 10 days, besides disciplinary actions as per company policy.

The absence is to be treated from the day of absence i.e. last attendance. If the employee is absenting without information or due to some other reasons, the total period of absent to be treated as absconding and lawfully he will loose pay for entire period. As per the rule of your organisation, absenting up to 3 days is not amounting misconduct and excess of it called for action. Where the period of absent is conteneous the period to be calculated from the 1st day it self.

I think Abhishek is more interested in how to mark the non-attendence of the employee. " LOP" is the effect of unauthorised absence only. You simply mark him as " absent ". In such a situation, he will not be entitled to salary for the entire period of absence, apart from facing disciplinary action, if any instituted.

I have difference of opinion. The Rule says that , any employee who is absent for more than 3 days without prior notice is termed as absconding employee. So the presumption of absconding would start counting only after three days and it cannot be prior to that. I agree that generally the presumption of abandonment would start from the Ist day of absence but here the company policy specifies that initial 3 days are to be marked as LOP- Loss Of Pay. So to give a treatment other than LOP would not be as per Rules. Although LOP is very same as absence in terms of effect but if there is a clause for presumption of loss of lien, the start day has to be the 4th day and the initial three days cannot be counted. So the proper course would be to treat those days as LOP days and if the employee doesn't return to work, he should be considered absconding from the 4th day of absence. I recollect that Court has held in counting the days of absence for drawing the presumption of abandonment, the weekly holidays cannot be counted and only the working days can be reckoned.

KKHR
If he joined back after days it would be ok
But if he doesnt join back counting has to start from Day 1
Think if it logically

But Nathrao Sir, here the Rule is specific and it is not providing for counting absence from day 1, the first three days are LOP only, that means it is not absence in itself. I have given the logic in my previous reply.

Dear Mr.KK!HR,
At times, logic can be misleading too. Please, analyse the opening statement of the thread which is extracted below:
" As per Company Policy, any employee who is absent for more than 3 days without prior notice
is termed as absconding employee."
It actually means any number of days of consecutive absence without prior notice beyond 3 days would be treated as abscondment of service by the absenting employee. It implies that up to the third such day it is unauthorised absence but consecutively beyond it the entire absence becomes absconding. In other words, the absence of the first three days just results in loss of wages only but when it goes beyond day three, the unauthorised absence from day one merges with the abscondment in effect.