Why Is Including an Employee's Address on an Appointment Letter Necessary? Seeking Your Insights

Inclusion of Address in Appointment Letters

The logic for including the address in the appointment letter is as follows:

a) While addressing a business letter, including the address is customary. The VP (HR) may refer to the Wren and Martin Grammar book, considered the bible of English grammar.

b) The appointment letter is a contract between the employer and employee under the provisions of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. In any contract, whether employment or otherwise, the inclusion of the address is mandatory.

c) The Karnataka Shops and Establishment Rule, 1963 mandates the issuance of Form Q to the newly joined employee. This form is called the Appointment Order, and it includes a column for the employee's address. Ideally, all employers are supposed to issue this form rather than the fancy appointment letter typically issued. Similarly, your state will have a similar form which you can search for and present.

d) Click the following link to refer to the Central Secretariat Manual of Office Procedure issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Government of India: [link] (Refer to page 28)

Final Comments

Business letters cannot be addressed solely to the person; writing the address below the name of the recipient is common practice. It is surprising to find the VP (HR) questioning the logic behind this age-old practice. It seems that the VP (HR) has forgotten the distinction between personal and official letters. Instead of questioning the employee, the VP (HR) could have easily searched on Google to understand the format of business letters. There are numerous templates available, each mentioning the address of the recipient.

What the VP (HR) has done is simply exhibit unwanted overbearing pride. It is unfortunate that a senior HR official like him was supposed to correct juniors, but the situation has come to a point where we are required to correct him! God bless his juniors!

Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar

Hi seniors,

Recently, I have joined a company. The appointment letter is issued without the employee's address on it. I asked the HR VP why it is not included and suggested changing the format. In response, he asked me to provide a logical reason why the address must be mentioned on the appointment letter.

I explained to him that it is a clause that needs to be included, but he requested that I provide the specific location of the clause. I would appreciate your valuable opinions and inputs on this matter.

Importance of Address in Official Communications

If the VP (HR) is not aware of the importance of the address in such kinds of official and formal communications, then the details shared by the learned member above are very correct.

Cross-Checking with Other Employees

Secondly, the VP HR must be quite smart with some intentions and may not have purposefully mentioned the address. I request you to cross-check with some of the other employees who have recently or earlier joined to see if this is the same case with them. The information you gather from the other employees will be very helpful.

Recommendation for Address Inclusion

You have already discussed the requirement of the address verbally. Now, I recommend either writing an email or a letter with a humble request to add the address and re-issue the appointment letter.

Regards, Prashant

Even if the appointment order, or any communication for that matter, is handed over to the addressee, the norm is still that the address is written. In all legal documents, the full description of the person is given, including name (and alias, if any), age, son/daughter/wife of, and residential address (including temporary address). The importance of including an address

VP seeking the logic for mentioning the address in the appointment order shows a cavalier attitude, which is not a good sign at all for building a relationship of trust and confidence.

Dear colleagues, I think some learned members are reading too much into the query and attaching motives to it because of the position of VP-HR of the poster and have even stooped to the level of insulting and bullying him. The query is simply about why it is necessary to put the address of the person in the appointment letter. However, coming from the VP-HR, the query could have been couched in better words than choosing to put it in a curt manner. But at the same time, it could be unintentional. No doubt, the query has been adequately addressed to cover the genesis, purpose, and practice in this regard. But the tone and manner are uncalled for.

Let me clarify that I am not batting for the poster, and these are my candid personal views.

Regards, Vinayak Nagarkar HR-Consultant.

Dear Mr. Vinayak Nagarkar, By instructing a junior employee to provide logic for including the address in the letter of appointment, the VP (HR) has performed a surprising feat. The inclusion of the address in business letters is a matter of common sense. Disregarding this common practice is likely to result in a negative reaction. The significance of this situation is heightened because such unconventional behavior has originated from a high-ranking official like the VP (HR).

Posts on public forums are subject to public scrutiny. The world can be unforgiving. It did not even spare the sitting President of the USA for his whimsical tweets or decisions. When compared to the US President, what importance does the VP (HR) of an obscure company in India hold?

Providing a solution to the original poster is one aspect; however, what the VP (HR) has done is issue a challenge to an employee who lacks power. His actions verge on cynicism, as he has misused his authority for the wrong purposes, leading to the backlash. Otherwise, why would anyone have personal grievances against him?

Regards,

Dinesh Divekar

Thank you, Dinesh Divekar sir, for your valuable feedback. Thank you, Mr. Ketan Chaudhari. He has been with this company for two years, and not a single appointment letter has been issued with the address. Only the employee's name is on it. I did tell Mr. Ketan the same, that we need it for our safety in the future if anything goes wrong. He simply said, "What if he changes the address and does not inform you? What if the employee does not update us on his new address?" He even questioned me, "Are you going to check everyone's home address personally at the time of the audit?" Also, I told him that this practice is followed worldwide, to which he responded, "I don't want to be a follower of anything."

If you could give me any logic, any legal rule that an employee's appointment letter should not be without an address, I will further maintain it. Otherwise, don't come with anything just because everyone else follows it. Thus, I want to know if veterans can help me with any logical reason or share some website references where such a rule exists. I am feeling very bad; he said this to me in front of my juniors. Either I want to correct him or convince myself that an appointment letter without an address is okay.

Dear Contributors,

I am pondering in the reverse manner. What complications will an employer or employee face if the appointment letter doesn't mention the employee's address? Will it affect the sanctity of the employment contract? Is the contract null and void in this case?

Regards,
Rahul Chhabra