Case File: My Employee is MIA!

If this hasn’t happened in your business yet, consider yourself lucky. It’s not a great spot to find yourself. But this situation has come across my desk several times recently.

My employee is on leave and won’t respond!

As a general practice, you don’t want to hound or harass an employee that’s on an approved FMLA or state leave. I’ve seen some employers expect the employee to perform work, which I think we can all agree is a huge no-no.

As the employer, you’re well within your right to reach out occasionally to ask how the employee is doing.

But what do you do if the employee is completely unresponsive, and the leave is expected to end very soon?

The best practice…

You’ll want to cover yourself before the leave has even begun by including in your approval letter that the employee is expected to be in touch with you no later than 14 days before the leave expiration date. This puts the responsibility on the employee to communicate with you instead of you feeling like you have to hunt them down.

The point of making them contact you 2 weeks prior to the end date is for them to notify you that they’re either on track to return when expected, or they need an extension for whatever reason. This helps them have the time they need to get what they need to get everything in order, and it helps you to be able to get a plan in place and operate your business.

If you don’t hear from them, this is where a letter will light the fire you want. Write them a letter (certified mail, please!) and mention that you’ve made multiple attempts to reach them with no success. Give them a deadline to respond to you (usually no more than a week), and mention that if you don’t hear from them, you’ll consider that they’ve voluntarily resigned. This is usually more than enough to get the employee to do their job and contact you.

Are you in a similar situation with an employee right now? Get in touch with me and I’ll work with you on your letter!