An Employee Just Stopped Coming to Work. Can You Take Them Off Payroll?

It happens more often than most employers expect: someone finishes their shift on Friday and is never seen again. No call, no message, no doctor's note. After a week or two the temptation is obvious — take them off the payroll, backfill the post, and move on. In South African labour law that quiet deletion is one of the most expensive mistakes an employer can make. Abandonment of employment is not automatic resignation, and removing someone without a process is a dismissal you will struggle to defend at the CCMA.

Absconding is not resignation — and that distinction matters

The instinct is to say the employee 'resigned by their conduct'. Legally, that is not how it works. Resignation is a deliberate act by the employee that ends the contract. Absconding — also called desertion or abandonment — is the employee failing to report for duty with the apparent intention of not returning. The key word is apparent. You are inferring intention from silence, and an inference can be wrong.

The Labour Court and the CCMA have been consistent on this point: when an employer treats a prolonged unexplained absence as the end of the relationship and stops paying the person, the employer has dismissed them. The absence may well justify that dismissal — but only if you can show you followed a fair procedure first. Skip the procedure and the dismissal becomes procedurally unfair regardless of how justified the reason was.

Why deleting them from payroll is a dismissal you did not intend

When you remove an absent employee from payroll, you have made a unilateral decision to end their employment. If that person later refers an unfair dismissal dispute — and many do, sometimes months later — the onus under the Labour Relations Act shifts to you as the employer to prove the dismissal was both substantively and procedurally fair.

At that point 'they abandoned their job' is a reason, not a defence on its own. The commissioner will ask what steps you took to establish that intention: Did you try to contact them? Did you write to them? Did you give them a chance to explain? If the answer is 'we assumed', you are exposed to compensation of up to twelve months' remuneration, and in some cases reinstatement with back-pay.

Step one: make and document real attempts to contact the employee

Before anything else, try to reach the person through every channel you have — phone, WhatsApp, email, and the emergency or next-of-kin contact in their file. People disappear for reasons that are not desertion at all: hospitalisation, a family death, arrest, a mental-health crisis, or an accident. An employee who is genuinely incapacitated has not abandoned anything, and dismissing them could raise incapacity and even discrimination questions.

Keep a written record of every attempt — dates, times, numbers dialled, messages sent, and whether they delivered or bounced. This paper trail is the foundation of your whole case. If the matter reaches arbitration, your contemporaneous notes are worth far more than your memory of what you 'think' you did.

Step two: send a written notice to return to work

If reasonable contact attempts fail, send a formal letter to the employee's last known physical and email address. The letter should state the dates they have been absent without authorisation, instruct them to report for duty or provide a satisfactory explanation by a specific reasonable date, and warn that a failure to respond will result in disciplinary action that may include dismissal for absence and abandonment.

Send it by a method you can prove — registered post, a courier with tracking, and email with a delivery or read receipt where possible. You are not required to physically locate the person; you are required to communicate to the address they gave you. A second letter a few days later strengthens the record. The point is to give a genuine opportunity to respond, not to tick a box.

• State the exact dates of unauthorised absence.
• Instruct a return to work or explanation by a clear deadline.
• Warn that non-response will lead to a hearing and possible dismissal.
• Send to every address on file, using a trackable method.

Step three: hold the absence hearing — even in their absence

If the deadline passes with no response, you still hold a disciplinary hearing into the charge of unauthorised absence or abandonment of employment. Where the employee cannot be located or chooses not to attend, the hearing proceeds in absentia. Notify them in writing of the hearing date and their right to attend and be represented, then run it exactly as you would any other hearing — lead the evidence of the absence and your contact attempts, and let an impartial chairperson decide on the facts.

This is the step employers skip, and it is the one that saves the case. A hearing in absentia is not a formality — it is your evidence that you gave the employee every reasonable chance before ending the relationship. If you are unsure how to convene one or how to present the abandonment charge properly, this is exactly the kind of process where getting the procedure right up front is far cheaper than defending a botched one later.

If the chairperson finds abandonment proven, issue a written outcome — dismissal for absence — and communicate it to the employee's last known addresses. Only now do you process the termination and adjust payroll, with a defensible file behind the decision.

What to do when they reappear

Absent employees have a habit of resurfacing — sometimes the day after you have filled their post. If they return before you have concluded the process, do not simply wave them back to work or slam the door. Require an explanation and supporting proof, then decide on the merits. A hospital admission with documentation is very different from 'I needed a break'.

Even a genuine reason usually does not excuse the failure to notify you, so a warning may still be appropriate for the unauthorised absence itself. The discipline should fit the real offence. What you must not do is punish the return with an on-the-spot dismissal or by refusing to pay for work already done — both of those hand the employee a ready-made claim.

Protect yourself before it ever happens

Two things make abandonment cases far easier to handle. First, a written contract and disciplinary code that define what counts as unauthorised absence and set out the abandonment procedure, so no one is improvising after the fact. Second, an up-to-date employee file with current contact details and a next-of-kin number — the single most useful document you will have when someone goes quiet.

Handled properly, abandonment is a manageable situation with a clear playbook: contact, notice, hearing, outcome. Handled by reflex — a quiet payroll deletion — it becomes an unfair dismissal claim you invited. If you want a practitioner to steer the process or represent you if it reaches the CCMA, you can start here.

Frequently asked questions

How many days of absence count as abandonment in South Africa?

There is no fixed number of days set in law. What matters is the employee's apparent intention not to return, judged on the circumstances. Some employers use a threshold like five consecutive unauthorised working days in their disciplinary code to trigger the process, but that number starts the procedure — it does not replace the need for contact attempts and a hearing.

Can I just treat a no-show as a resignation?

No. Resignation is a positive act by the employee. Treating silence as resignation and stopping pay is legally a dismissal by the employer, which you must be able to justify as fair in both reason and procedure. Assumed resignations regularly fail at the CCMA.

Do I have to pay an absconding employee for the time they were gone?

You do not have to pay for days they did not work — no work, no pay applies. But you must still pay out anything genuinely owed up to their last working day, including accrued annual leave, and you cannot withhold earned wages as a punishment for the absence.

The employee cannot be found at all. Can I still dismiss them?

Yes, provided you followed the process. Document your contact attempts, send written notice to their last known addresses, and hold the disciplinary hearing in their absence. The dismissal is defensible because you gave a genuine opportunity to respond — not because they simply vanished.

What if the employee comes back with a medical certificate?

Treat it as an incapacity or absence issue, not desertion. A valid medical explanation may mean there was no abandonment at all. You can still address the failure to notify you as a separate, lesser matter — usually a warning rather than dismissal, depending on the facts.

This article is general information on South African labour law and is not legal advice on your specific situation. Speak to us about your facts.