Job Abandonment

What Is Job Abandonment?

Job Abandonment is a state of affairs when an employee ignores showing up to work for an extended period without any announcement or explanation to their employer. This is mainly the case when there is no formal resignation or absence notification from an employee. Job leaving creates problems for employers, particularly in managing work processes, sustaining efficient staffing, and ensuring high productivity.

Employers usually have well-designed procedures for tackling the issue of job abandonment, which may include sending messages to the employee's contacts to ascertain the reasons for the absenteeism, sending formal notification requiring the employee to return to work, or placing the employee on termination if the attempts at restoring communication prove futile.

Job abandonment policies should also be implied for the smooth productivity of enterprises and the perspicuity of the employers and employees regarding job expectations and workplace conduct. They also build a system of handling the cases of absence in a just and uniform way.

Example

For instance, one case of job abandonment is when an employee, namely Sarah, who works as a store sales associate, quits working without notice to her employer. Sarah’s problems had been aggravated in the last couple of weeks, and she could not attend classes at regular intervals. Sarah's manager tries his best to back her up and organize her work schedule, but this is not enough, so Sarah stops coming to the office.

The issue after the unexpected departure of one of the store employees is the overload of employees since this person is to be replaced. In such a situation, the team has to share duties among them and make shifts to ensure that the store continues running normally. All efforts were made to contact Sarah by telephone, email, and messaging, but there was no response from her side. Then, after several weeks and no communication or explanation from Sarah, the employer concluded that they would fire her due to job absenteeism and hire a replacement worker to fill the post and ensure the business remains profitable.