When a person does something wrong, it’s only fair that we hold them accountable for what they did, right? But what if the person wants to wash themselves of responsibility or wants to escape the consequences of what they did by trying to resign?
This happens in work situations when a person is under investigation for a work violation, and suddenly, they say, “Sir, resign na lang po ako ako.” What then happens, what effect will it have on the pending case?
This is exactly what Angela N. is wondering about when she submitted this question on our website and she says:
“Attorney, how do we manage employees with pending admin cases who would like to resign while their case is still ongoing. Should the leaders/HR consider/accept the resignation? How would the HR/Leaders handle this?”
If you would like to know the answer as well, stick around as we talk about your options.
This episode is brought to you by "The Complete Employee Discipline System" A book that teaches owners, managers, and supervisors how to handle any offense easily and systematically. It provides step-by-step procedures from incident reports all the way to the clearance process. Stand your ground and discipline with confidence. Go to info.legalguide.ph/discipline 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 are with my partner, Atty. Erwin Zagala.
Alright, so today we're talking about resigning while being investigated. The difficult thing about this is that 2 processes overlap each other. You’re not yet done with one when another process suddenly demands your attention.
What happens with the investigation? After all, when an employee resigns, they are no longer employed. What happens with the penalties? Are they dropped? What if they don’t cooperate saying that they’re no longer connected with the company?
Can they resign?
In this episode, we talk about:
- Does that acquit them from the case?
- Can you still hold them liable for the violation?
- What if they offer to resign in exchange for dropping the case.
Additional Resources
For most of you, this video was more than enough, and if it makes your life easier then you're welcome. But there are those of you who will watch this video and end up asking more questions such as “Attorney how do we hold guilty employees accountable? How do you create the legal documents needed to terminate? Or attorney, how do you create policies that protect the company in the first place? So this doesn't happen.” If that's you then I invite you to check out "The Complete Employee Discipline System" book where we teach you a road map handling employee discipline cases from start to finish. Get the book at info.legalguide.ph/discipline today.
To add to that. If you want us to tackle your question in our show as we did for Leilan, go to www.legalguide.ph and click the Submit topic button. Next of course we'd like to know what's your biggest takeaway from today's video, so please write it down in the comments and let's talk about it. Last, if you feel we've earned a good rating, please give us a like and subscribe because it gives us feedback that we're doing a good job and it encourages us to do more videos.
One last thing... it’s human nature to try and avoid painful situations. That applies to employees who are undergoing investigations right now. It may appeal to them to take the easy way out and just leave. But as a boss, it’s your job to use discernment. Would it serve the employee’s higher good if they leave without learning the lesson? Or would it be better to have them experience the consequences so they can learn from it? Use this as the most important factor when deciding whether to allow resignations during the pendency of cases.
So wasn't that simple? Now go make better choices.
