One of the hardest violations to handle for any owner, manager, or supervisor is AWOL or absence without leave. AWOL happens when an employee disappears without warning.
They don't give you any notifications, or any reasons, when you get into work one day, they're simply not there.
“ Oh, asan na si Jun-jun? Attorney, wala po.”
Take this reader who asks:
"Attorney one of our employees suddenly disappeared from work. No notice, no message. He just disappeared. Now the rest of the team has to take over his work. And we're panicking because he left a lot of important projects hanging. Do you have any tips for AWOL cases?"
If you want to learn how to minimize the damage done by AWOL employees, stick around.
This video is brought to you by "AWOL Preparedness Plan" an online workshop that teaches owners, managers and supervisors what to do when an employee disappears without warning. It will give you step-by-step instructions and templates so you can minimize the damage from missing employees. Be prepared, it can happen to you. Go to info.legalguide.ph/awol to learn more.
Welcome to Legal Guide Philippines where we simplify the law to help you make better choices. I'm Atty. Ramon Ramirez and I'm with my partner, Atty. Erwin Zagala. Now in this video, we will be talking about three tips when handling AWOL cases.
You need to control yourself with AWOL employees
Now I want to jump to the first one, which is you need to control yourself. Control yourself. And I'm talking to the bosses, the managers, and the supervisors. Now, AWOL cases have the possibility of getting you all flustered and frustrated. Yes. Why? The root cause is because respect is not reciprocated. What do I mean by that?
OK, so you're the superior officer. And remember this employee when he was applying for work. You gave them the time. You did an interview. You processed their papers. In-explain mo pa nga yung probationary contract e. You gave them an offer. You set the accounts. Kinuha mo pa yung SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG. You explained the salary package. You even trained them to ensure that they have an easy transition into their job and you made sure that they were comfortable in their new spaces. You gave them overtime. You gave them holiday pay.
Everything that's needed, only to find out that when a better offer comes in, they leave without warning. That is the source of your frustration, my friend. It's because the respect was not reciprocated. Now, as a leader, I know, tao lang. You're feeling all of these emotions, but as a leader, you can't afford the luxury of getting carried away with your emotions. You still have to follow procedures and you still need to document and close the AWOL case. Why? Legally speaking, if you don't follow the proper procedures, it might come back with unintended consequences down the line.
You need to be able to put your records in place to show that this AWOL employee was given due process and eventually terminated. That's the place that you want to get at. Now, I want to discuss step number two, and this has something to do with your team.
Decide what message you want to teach the rest of the team (about AWOL)
Tip number two is to decide what message you want to teach the rest of the team. If you encounter AWOL, there is a big tendency for you to think, "Ah ayaw mo? Wag mo!"
“Kung ayaw mo samin, mas ayaw namin sayo!” and how this plays out in real life is you just won't you just won't do anything. You will cut off the salary. No need to process the papers or send out anything. You just simply ignore them to oblivion.
Now, this has unintended consequences because by doing that, you're not imposing any sanction or consequence to the action. Essentially, what you're teaching the rest of your team - doon sa mga naiwan - is it's okay to go AWOL in this company. Why? Boss won't impose any consequences. You're free to go.
So essentially, you're teaching them if the situation arises in the future, that they want to leave your company or there's a better opportunity. You're teaching them to go AWOL as well because there's no consequence. In effect what you're teaching your employees to do is to continue violating company procedures.
Do you want that? I don't think you do. So by imposing the proper consequences against erring employees, you're actually preventing future AWOL cases from happening, because you're teaching your team that these are the boundaries and if you go beyond these boundaries, there are consequences to be had.
Now, let's talk about the third tip. Having said all of that. Now I'm going to say something in favor of the AWOL employee. Surprising isn't it? OK, let's go.
Give the AWOL employee the benefit of the doubt
Tip number three is to give the employee the benefit of the doubt. Now, assuming that your employee is missing from work, you always assure good intent behind the action. Do not assume malice. Now there's a good reason for this. You don't know the actual reason why your employee is missing.
This calls to mind two stories that happened with one of my students. Number one is, this was during the time of the big storm here in the Philippines. So after the big storm, one of his employees, my student, failed to come back to work. And so the immediate supervisor of this employee was saying all of these bad things.
"Walang utang na loob! Hindi man lang nagsabi. Walang delikadesa!" Only to find out, a few days later, that because of the storm, that employee was stranded. He lost everything, even the cell phone. That's why he couldn't call back to work. And what ended up happening was he hitchhiked his way from the province all the way to Manila just to go back to work.
So imagine how the immediate supervisor felt when he found out the truth. So do not put yourself in that position. Do not assume malice.
Give all of the chances for the employee to explain themselves. And if it turns out that they really were AWOL Your hands are clean because you gave them all the chances. You never assumed malice.
Now, the other scenario, which involves AWOL employees, this time it's not a storm. It was an accident. So what ended up happening for this second scenario, the employee was in a coma. In a coma? So if he's in a coma, then there's no way he can report to work, or tell the boss. Yes. And it was a similar situation because the bosses were saying all of these bad things against the employee.
Only to find out a couple of weeks later that the employee was in a coma and there was no physical way for that employee to get in touch with them. So I don't want you to find yourselves in that situation where you have to eat your words or recant what you said.
Always assure good intent. And part of that is just sending out what's needed under the law. This includes the return to work order and going through due process in case the return to work order is not followed.
And Attorney in that situation. If I were that employee, and makakarating sa akin, I would hear about what was being said about me. That's also not a good situation to be in. If you have the choice, just go with being professional or being a good leader. Don't assume malice.
Let’s summarize
So let's do a recap, guys. Sure. I'll do the recap. So first, Atty. Erwin gave us three tips. When somebody or one of your employees goes AWOL, the first tip is you need to control yourself. If somebody goes AWOL, yes, it's irritating, nakaka-inis. But you need to control yourself. All you need to do is to follow your procedures, your internal procedures, or the legal procedures when somebody goes AWOL.
Second, is you decide what message you want to teach the rest of your team. So if somebody goes AWOL, the rest of the team is looking at you to see what you will do. If you don't do anything, if you just say, all right, good riddance, whatever and not do anything, you're teaching them that it's probably okay to just go on AWOL. But if you follow the procedures and you impose sanctions on going AWOL, you teach them that there are consequences.
And the last tip given by Atty. Erwin was give the benefit of the doubt to the employee. Do not assume malice. It's possible that there are It's possible that there is a good reason why the employee has gone AWOL. So do not assume malice. Give them due process, give them the benefit of the doubt, give them the chance to explain, and if it turns out that it's justified, then welcome back.
Additional Resources
Now, if you want to learn more about handling AWOL cases, please go to info.legalguide.ph/awol to learn more.
And if you like this video, please give us a like and subscribe. If you want us to tackle your question in our show, go to legalguide.ph and click the submit topic button.
We'd like to know what's your biggest takeaway as well. So write it down in the comments and let's talk about it.
One last thing, AWOL really is a crisis. You don't know when it would strike and if you have a big team, chances are you will encounter this at some point. The key is to prepare for it is like a disaster, and have a preparedness plan in place. When you know how to handle an employee going missing, others will feel your confidence and ultimately, your preparation leads to a stronger team.
So wasn't that simple? Now go make better choices.
