Job Abandonment: How to Prevent it From Happening?

14 of June, 2022

The issue of job abandonment is quickly becoming a problem in California today. With this quickly becoming a trend and with so many businesses ignorant as to how to handle this problem, we’ve decided to create an article on how to handle this problem.

What is Job Abandonment?

Job abandonment is basically when an employee takes a leave of absence from their job, either temporarily or permanently, without giving employers any prior notification or indication. The issue here isn’t the employee being absent from work. It is them not showing up to work without providing any prior warning. It is all the problems this leaves an organization. 

Job Abandonment in California

While there are no real laws on job abandonment in California, there are a number of legal issues and abandonment consequences that could arise. For example, an employee who is working under a contract simply abandoning their post without prior notice and an agreement with their employer would have a number of legal issues to face. There might also be ADA and FMLA concerns to look into if medical issues were involved.

Signs of Employee Abandonment

It is not always clear when an establishment is at risk of abandonment; at least not at first. When it becomes obvious though, it is often too late. Thankfully, we’ve got you covered. Here are 4 signs that your establishment is at risk of job abandonment. 

1. Employees haven’t resumed work after a vacation, leave, or break.
2. Absence of employee from work without prior notice.
3. Employees are unresponsive to attempts at all forms of communication.
4. Employee’s personal belongings are absent from the workspace.

While the presence of any of these signs might not necessarily mean the employee has abandoned their post, it is often a good indicator that something is wrong.

How to Prevent Job Abandonment

Job abandonment leaves a disturbance in any organization; it disrupts workflow, reduces productivity and efficiency, and takes a good amount of time, effort, and even money to fix. That’s a lot of heartache for the HR department. 

Want to make sure your organization never has to deal with this headache, here are a few ways to prevent employee abandonment.

• Get Regular Feedback from Employees

If there is one thing we have come to know about job abandonment, it is that it often starts from some form of discontent on the part of the employee. Getting feedback from employees about the organization and any issues they feel should be addressed is a great way to find out what pain points they might have and how to solve them.

• Identify the Signs

Employees often give hints before they abandon their posts. Learning to identify these hints and acting accordingly would often save you from having to deal with an employee’s sudden disappearance.

• Motivate Employees to Give Proper Notice

Encourage employees to always give prior notice if the need ever arises to take a leave of absence. It helps to add some incentive to encourage them to actually take the time to provide the notice. 

If you want to protect your business from job abandonment, you already know that there are many digital solutions out there. For example, with performance evaluations you can boost the performance of your employees. Sesame HR software has multiple features that allow you to build the best work environment at your company. The best thing is that you can personalize basically everything!

Cristina Martin

People and Talent Director | LinkedIn | | Web | +post

Professional with over 20 years of extensive experience in various areas of Human Resources (Recruitment, Training, Occupational Risk Prevention, and Personnel Management). Experience in the Management Department: Broad understanding of the company and HR.

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