HR Home Forums Community Contacting employees on leave: What are the rules and best practices? Answer for Contacting employees on leave: What are the rules and best practices?

vickyp
Keymaster
Post count: 4923

That’s a good question. The first thing you need to do is look at your leave policies. Hopefully, they clearly state the employee’s duty to remain in contact while on leave. The problem is that these provisions, where they exist, are typically restricted to the return date and information necessary to effect a return to work and may not cover payroll and compensation arrangements. Have you tried reaching out to them? If so, how did they respond? If not, I think you should, especially to the extent that the communications is clearly in their own interests to the extent it affects the size and payment of bonues, salary adjustments and such. Of course, if you’re planning to deny bonuses or cut salaries, those communications aren’t likely to be received with welcome arms.
https://hrinsider.ca/how-to-handle-awol-employees/ Here’s an article on maintaining contact with employees on leave that may help, even though it’s not exactly tailored to your own situation. Glenn