Dear Dipti,
I understand your situation. When a senior employee becomes wayward, it causes mental hardship to the company officials. Anyway, come what may we have to handle the situation that comes in its wake.
Whether the employee is eligible to get salary in lieu of the notice or not that best can be said after reading the terms and conditions of separation specified in the appointment letter. Therefore, go through his appointment letter.
Many companies clearly mention in the appointment letter that "company reserves the right to pay the salary in lieu of notice period". If you have inserted such a clause then your management can very well withhold the salary. Replies to your other questions are as below:
1. Why to pay him ,if he has not served the full notice period
Reply: - If the employee is still under the notice period then you cannot say that he has not completed his notice period. Secondly, he had asked for the leave on medical emergency and your company official granted it also. Therefore, it is authorised absence and not unauthorised absence. Nevertheless, if he overstays then it becomes unauthorised abasence and consequently misconduct. Therefore, once six day leave is completed, you write to him that he must join his duties in order to complete the notice period. Extension of leave will not be granted and disciplinary action will be initiated for the overstay.
2. Company lossed important client due to that employees false commitment?
Reply: - Do you have material evidence of the commitment by the employee? If yes, then order the domestic enquiry to assess whether he gave the false commitment. If it emerges that the company suffered losses owing to the false commitment then he is liable for the suitable punishment. This domestic enquiry is independent of disciplinary action mentioned in paragraph 1 above.
3. What about his arogant language? As one point he said that he will give his salary as. Charity to company
Reply: - Issue the show cause notice to the employee for his unbecoming and indecoroius behaviour. If the explanation is not found satisfactory, you may initiate disciplinary action. This disciplinary action is independent of previous two actions.
4. Company understand his situation and allowed him to go, so is this a fault of company????
Reply: - When an employees puts up some request, company accedes to it in a good faith. Therefore, the company officials were not at fault per se. However, if the employee takes an undue advantage of the facilities provided to the employee, then it is a breach of trust and company reserves the right to withdraw those facilities as well.
5. We have so bad experience with him ,then do we need to give him experience n relieving certificates?
Reply: - Issue of appointment letter or the experience letter are the routine administrative matters of the company. These cannot be linked to the good or bad behaviour of the employee. Therefore, go ahead and issue the relieving letter to the employee. However, if you take action against the employee for the misconduct and if the punishment is awarded then you may write the adverse remarks in the relieving letter. However, to do this you must sufficient material evidence of the misconduct. The enquiry conducted should be fair and partial and you must give a chance to the employee to present his views as well. If it is not done then the enquiry could be termed as vitiated and any action taken under the enquiry could become null and void. If the action becomes null and void then the certificate issued on the strength of the enquiry will also become null and void. Therefore, please proceed cautiously.
Impact on the Organisation's Culture: - Rather than getting disappointed due to the wrong behaviour of the employee, take this as opportunity to showcase to the other employees that there exists a culture discipline, culture of jusness and fairness in your company. After conducting proper enquiry if the punishment is awarded and after awarding the punishment, if the employee is issued with the relieving letter with adverse remarks, it will send a right message to all other employees. Employment is a commitment to the organisation or organisation's customer. It has to be handled with due sensitivity. Sooner one gets a better opporunity, the employment cannot be abandoned. Employment is bread and butter to the employees. Therefore, the bread and butter has to be shown due affective feelings and those who do not do it, they risk their employment or career itself. This message must be passed to all other employees. Nevertheless, action speaks louder than words and there is no need for communicating this message directly to the employees.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar