Employee Stopped Showing Up? Abandonment Letter Template AU

The Fair Work Act does not define abandonment. The Commission describes it as a situation where an employee ceases to attend work without proper excuse or explanation and, by doing so, shows an unwillingness or inability to perform the contract. In contract terms, that conduct is a form of repudiation. The employer can accept the repudiation and end the relationship, but nothing happens until it does. The abandonment of employment letter is how that step is taken and proved.

The document is often confused with two others. A resignation acceptance responds to an employee who has clearly said they are leaving; abandonment involves no such statement, which is why the employer carries more risk. A termination letter for misconduct follows an investigation into known conduct, while an abandonment letter starts from the opposite position: the employer does not know why the employee is absent and has to find out before deciding anything. A well-drafted letter therefore reads first as a genuine attempt to make contact, and only in its final stage as notice that employment is ending.

The leading authority is the Full Bench decision in Bienias v Iplex Pipelines Australia Pty Ltd [2017] FWCFB 38. The Full Bench held that an award clause deeming employment terminated after three days of absence did not end the employment automatically: the employer had to take a positive step to terminate, and if it did not, the employment continued. Whether that step is a dismissal "on the employer's initiative" under s.386 is then a question of fact, applying the test in Mohazab v Dick Smith Electronics (1995) 62 IR 200. Some members of the Commission treat acceptance of a clear repudiation as ending employment on the employee's initiative; others treat the employer's letter as a dismissal. The safe course is to assume the letter will be tested as a dismissal and to run the process accordingly.

The Commission then decided in Abandonment of Employment [2018] FWCFB 7433 that abandonment clauses were neither permitted nor required in modern awards. As the Fair Work Ombudsman's guidance on abandonment of employment confirms, those clauses ceased to apply from the first full pay period on or after 20 December 2018, and employers should make all reasonable attempts to contact the employee before concluding the job has been abandoned. Fairness is measured against s.387, including whether the employee was notified of the reason and given an opportunity to respond. Section 352 prohibits dismissal because of a temporary absence for illness or injury, and regulation 3.01 of the Fair Work Regulations 2009 attaches that protection where a medical certificate or statutory declaration is provided within 24 hours, or a longer period that is reasonable. A breach of that kind is pursued as a general protections claim under s.365. Some enterprise agreements and contracts still contain abandonment clauses, and an Australian employment contract with a clear absence and contact clause gives the employer a defined process to point to, though no clause replaces a fair process.

The classic trigger for an abandonment of employment letter is an employee who simply stops turning up, with calls going to voicemail and messages left unanswered. A second common scenario is the failure to return after approved leave: an employee goes overseas on annual leave, the return date passes, and nobody hears from them. Here the letter fixes the agreed return date on the record. It also helps when an absence starts with a single message ("not feeling well, will call later") and then goes quiet. A reason was given, so the employer cannot treat it as abandonment straight away, but it can require evidence and set a reasonable deadline.

Three edge cases deserve care. If the absent worker was engaged under an independent contractor agreement for Australian businesses, the analysis is about breach of a commercial contract, although s.15AA lets the Commission look past the label to the real substance of the relationship. A casual employee with no firm advance commitment who stops accepting shifts raises different questions, and the letter should be adapted rather than sent as standard. And where the employee may be experiencing family and domestic violence, the ten days of paid leave under s.106A mean a silent absence can have a protected cause the employer does not yet know about.

• The employee identification and absence record sets out the employee's full name, position, last day of attendance and every rostered day missed since. Precise dates matter because the Commission will compare them against the employer's own rosters and call logs.
• The summary of contact attempts lists each phone call, text, email and letter with its date and method. This is the core evidence that the employer made reasonable efforts before drawing any conclusion.
• The welfare statement expresses genuine concern for the employee's wellbeing and invites them to make contact. It answers any later suggestion that the outcome was decided in advance.
• The request for an explanation and supporting evidence asks the employee to explain the absence and, where relevant, provide a medical certificate or statutory declaration. The wording tracks regulation 3.01 so a legitimate illness or injury claim surfaces early.
• The response deadline gives a specific calendar date and time, with a reasonable allowance for delivery. Vague phrases such as "as soon as possible" have no place in the final letter.
• The statement of consequences explains that if no response is received, the employer will treat the conduct as a repudiation and end the employment. This is the opportunity to respond that s.387(c) looks for.
• The confirmation of termination records the effective date, the reason and the final pay position. Where a standard dismissal is the better route, our termination letter pack drafted to s.117 and s.119 of the Fair Work Act takes over.

New South Wales private sector employers are in the national system, but state law still shapes the outcome. If the absent employee has a compensable workplace injury, s.248 of the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW) makes it an offence to dismiss them because they are not fit for employment within six months of becoming unfit, and a dismissed injured worker can apply for reinstatement within two years. Long service leave matters too. Under s.4(2)(a)(iii) of the Long Service Leave Act 1955 (NSW), pro rata leave after five years is lost only where the employer terminates for serious and wilful misconduct, so the way the letter characterises the conduct has a direct financial effect.

Victoria referred its industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth, so almost every private employer applies the Fair Work Act directly. The main state overlay is the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013 (Vic), which requires employers to provide suitable or pre-injury employment for up to 52 weeks of a worker's incapacity, to the extent reasonable. An injured worker's silence is therefore not a safe basis for abandonment. Under the Long Service Leave Act 2018 (Vic), pro rata leave is payable after seven years whatever the reason for termination.

Queensland private employers are also in the national system. The key risk is s.232B of the Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld), which makes it an offence to dismiss a worker within 12 months of injury solely or mainly because they are not fit for their position. Long service leave is governed by the Industrial Relations Act 2016 (Qld), where pro rata leave between seven and ten years is generally not payable if the employer ends employment because of the employee's conduct, which is how most abandonment cases are framed.

Western Australia needs separate treatment. Sole traders, partnerships and other employers that are not constitutional corporations sit in the state system under the Industrial Relations Act 1979 (WA). Their employees bring unfair dismissal claims to the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission within 28 days rather than 21, and the template adjusts the tribunal reference accordingly.

You start by selecting the state or territory where the employee works and confirming whether your business is a company or an unincorporated employer, which matters most in Western Australia. The form then asks for the employee's details, position, employment type and the date they last attended work. From there, you record each contact attempt with its date and channel.

Next, you choose the stage you are at, and you can return to the same answers as the matter progresses. The welfare letter is open in tone; the final letter sets the response deadline and states the consequences; the confirmation letter records the end of employment. If the absence follows approved leave, you enter the agreed return date and the wording adjusts.

Finally, you set the deadline and the delivery method. Registered Post to the last known address, combined with email to the employee's personal address, is the safest combination. If the employee responds with a performance or conduct issue rather than a valid explanation, a written warning and performance improvement plan is usually the better next step than termination.

The most frequent mistake is treating silence as a resignation. Employers send a letter saying "you are taken to have resigned", then argue at the Commission that there was no dismissal. That argument succeeds only where the repudiation was unmistakable and the employer's contact efforts were thorough, which is rarely the case when the letter went out after three days. The second mistake is moving too fast. A termination letter sent before the employee has had a genuine chance to respond is the single biggest cause of lost abandonment cases. The third is relying on one channel. A single unanswered call is not "all reasonable attempts", and the Commission will ask whether the employer also emailed, wrote, tried the emergency contact on file or, in serious cases, requested a police welfare check.

The fourth mistake is backdating. Letters that set the termination date as the last day the employee attended create notice, final pay and continuity problems, and they suggest the decision came before the process. The effective date should be the date the employer actually decides to end employment, after the response deadline has passed. The last mistake is forgetting the money. Accrued annual leave must be paid out under s.90(2), most modern awards require final pay within seven days of termination, and notice under s.117 is still owed unless s.123(1)(b) applies because the conduct genuinely amounts to serious misconduct.