Strictly private & confidential · Working specimen
M3.11 · Module 3: Warning & Discipline
[Notice] Breach of Contract (AWOL / Abandonment)
[Notis] Kemungkiran Kontrak (Tidak Hadir Kerja / AWOL)
The letter that asks a missing employee why they disappeared, before you can end their contract for going AWOL.
Surat untuk bertanya kepada pekerja yang hilang mengapa mereka ghaib, sebelum anda boleh menamatkan kontrak mereka akibat AWOL.
Before you use this: important instructions
When to use this letter
Use it when somebody has been absent for more than two consecutive working days, with no approved leave and without telling you.
Read the exception as carefully as the trigger. The section does not treat the absence as a breach where the employee had a reasonable excuse and informed you, or tried to. A missed call, or a message to a supervisor who never passed it on, may be enough to defeat the whole thing.
An employee shall be deemed to have broken his contract of service with the employer if he has been continuously absent from work for more than two consecutive working days without prior leave from his employer, unless he has a reasonable excuse for such absence and has informed or attempted to inform his employer of such excuse prior to or at the earliest opportunity during such absence.
Stop and read. Do not use this letter to fire anybody today.
Plenty of bosses believe two days of silence ends the employment by itself. It does not. You still have to ask.
This letter does the asking. It states what your records show, puts the allegation to the employee, and gives them a chance to explain. What happens after the deadline is a separate decision, and you make it on what comes back.
How to use this document
1. Count working days, not calendar days
Rest days and public holidays do not count.
They work Monday to Friday and go missing on Thursday. Friday is day two. Saturday and Sunday are not counted. Monday is day three. The earliest you can send this letter is Tuesday.
2. Give them 48 hours to make contact
That 48 hours is our practice. It is not a deadline in the Act. The section sets the absence trigger and says nothing about how long you must give somebody to reply.
Do not set an impossible deadline. Asking for an answer in two hours reads as bad faith and it will be read back to you that way. And if they do make contact, the 48 hours was only ever the contact check. A full explanation with documents behind it often needs 72 hours to a week, depending on what they are dealing with.
3. Send it through every channel you normally use
If you run the company on WhatsApp and then serve one letter by post, you have not really tried to reach anybody, and it looks that way afterwards.
- A.R. Registered Post to the last home address in your records.
- The same letter as a PDF by WhatsApp and email.
- Call them. Keep the call log and screenshots of the unanswered messages.
If the posted letter comes back, keep the envelope. It proves where you sent it. It does not prove anybody read it, and on its own it is not a reason to move to the next step.
4. Wait
Take no action until the deadline has passed. Not the desk, not the locker, not the WhatsApp group.
What their answer changes
Silence lets you move on the contractual breach route. A reply does not. If they come back with an explanation, you have to genuinely weigh it before you decide anything, and if you reject it you are on the misconduct route under section 14(1) Employment Act 1955, section 14(1) "An employer may, on the grounds of misconduct inconsistent with the fulfilment of the express or implied conditions of his service, after due inquiry … dismiss without notice the employee". instead, which is a different procedure with a different standard.
Both of those roads start with this one letter, which is why it is worth sending properly.
None of this stops anybody filing. Filing at JTK or the Industrial Court costs your employee nothing at all. What a clean file changes is what the other side has to work with.
The leadership truth: think charitably first
Before you assume somebody walked out on you, make the phone call. Ring the emergency contact in their file. Ring their spouse. Ask the person who sits next to them.
People are in ICU after a road accident. People are sitting with a parent who has just been admitted. If you dismiss somebody who was in a coma because you posted a letter and never picked up the phone, no paperwork will save you, and in my view nothing should.
If what comes back is a mental health crisis, stop. Treat it as a medical matter, not misconduct, and move to the medical process. Look, I am an employment lawyer and not a doctor. I cannot tell you from a page which one you are looking at. I can tell you to make the call before you decide.
Sebelum anda guna: arahan penting
Bila surat ini digunakan
Gunakan surat ini apabila pekerja tidak hadir bekerja selama lebih daripada dua hari bekerja berturut-turut tanpa cuti yang diluluskan dan tanpa memaklumkan kepada anda.
Baca pengecualiannya seteliti anda membaca syaratnya. Seksyen ini tidak menganggap ketidakhadiran itu sebagai kemungkiran jika pekerja mempunyai alasan yang munasabah dan telah memaklumkan, atau cuba memaklumkan, kepada anda.
Seseorang pekerja hendaklah disifatkan telah memecahkan kontrak perkhidmatannya dengan majikan jika dia telah tidak hadir bekerja secara berterusan selama lebih daripada dua hari bekerja berturut-turut tanpa mendapat kebenaran cuti majikan terlebih dahulu, melainkan dia mempunyai alasan yang munasabah bagi ketidakhadiran tersebut dan telah memaklumkan atau cuba memaklumkan kepada majikan mengenai alasan tersebut sebelum atau pada peluang terawal semasa ketidakhadiran tersebut.
Berhenti dan baca. Jangan guna surat ini untuk memecat sesiapa hari ini.
Ramai majikan menganggap dua hari senyap sudah menamatkan pekerjaan dengan sendirinya. Tidak. Anda masih perlu bertanya.
Surat inilah yang bertanya. Ia menyatakan apa yang direkodkan, membawa dakwaan itu kepada pekerja, dan memberi mereka peluang untuk menjelaskan. Apa yang berlaku selepas tarikh akhir adalah keputusan berasingan, dan anda buat keputusan itu berdasarkan jawapan yang diterima.
Cara guna dokumen ini
1. Kira hari bekerja, bukan hari kalendar
Hari rehat dan cuti umum tidak dikira.
Mereka bekerja Isnin hingga Jumaat, dan hilang pada hari Khamis. Jumaat adalah hari kedua. Sabtu dan Ahad tidak dikira. Isnin adalah hari ketiga. Paling awal anda boleh hantar surat ini ialah hari Selasa.
2. Beri mereka 48 jam untuk menghubungi anda
48 jam itu adalah amalan kami. Ia bukan tempoh yang ditetapkan dalam Akta. Seksyen tersebut menetapkan syarat ketidakhadiran, dan tidak menyebut berapa lama anda perlu beri seseorang untuk membalas.
Jangan tetapkan tarikh akhir yang mustahil. Meminta jawapan dalam masa dua jam menunjukkan niat tidak jujur. Dan jika mereka menghubungi anda, 48 jam itu hanyalah pemeriksaan hubungan. Penjelasan penuh berserta dokumen selalunya memerlukan 72 jam hingga seminggu, bergantung kepada keadaan mereka.
3. Hantar melalui setiap saluran yang anda biasa guna
Jika anda uruskan syarikat melalui WhatsApp, kemudian hantar satu surat pos sahaja, anda sebenarnya tidak benar-benar cuba menghubungi sesiapa.
- Pos Berdaftar A.R. ke alamat rumah terakhir dalam rekod anda.
- Surat yang sama dalam bentuk PDF melalui WhatsApp dan e-mel.
- Telefon mereka. Simpan log panggilan dan tangkap layar mesej yang tidak berbalas.
Jika surat pos dipulangkan, simpan sampul itu. Ia membuktikan ke mana anda menghantarnya. Ia tidak membuktikan sesiapa telah membacanya, dan dengan sendirinya ia bukan alasan untuk meneruskan langkah seterusnya.
4. Tunggu
Jangan ambil sebarang tindakan sehingga tarikh akhir luput.
Apa yang berubah dengan jawapan mereka
Jika mereka senyap, anda boleh bergerak atas laluan kemungkiran kontrak. Jika mereka membalas, tidak. Anda mesti menimbang penjelasan itu dengan jujur sebelum memutuskan apa-apa, dan jika anda menolaknya, anda berada di laluan salah laku, iaitu prosedur yang berbeza.
Hakikat kepimpinan: bertolak ansur dahulu
Sebelum anda menganggap seseorang sengaja lari dari tugas, buat panggilan telefon. Hubungi kenalan kecemasan dalam fail mereka. Hubungi suami atau isteri mereka. Tanya rakan sekerja yang duduk sebelah mereka.
Ada orang berada di ICU akibat kemalangan jalan raya. Ada yang sedang menjaga ibu bapa yang baru dimasukkan ke wad. Jika anda memecat pekerja yang sedang koma kerana anda hantar surat dan tidak pernah angkat telefon, tiada dokumen yang akan menyelamatkan anda.
Jika yang kembali kepada anda adalah krisis kesihatan mental, berhenti. Anggap ia sebagai masalah perubatan, bukan salah laku, dan beralih kepada proses perubatan. Saya seorang peguam pekerjaan, bukan doktor. Saya tidak boleh beritahu anda yang mana satu dari sehelai kertas. Saya boleh beritahu anda supaya buat panggilan itu dahulu.
The official notice
Copy onto your company letterhead and fill in every bracket before it goes anywhere. Your admin can do this part. You sign it.
Notis rasmi
Salin dan tampal pada kepala surat syarikat, dan isi setiap kurungan sebelum ia dihantar. Admin anda boleh buat bahagian ini. Anda yang menandatanganinya.
Both languages are shown. The letter you send is chosen by who receives it, not by what you are reading. Kedua-dua bahasa ditunjukkan. Surat yang anda hantar bergantung kepada siapa yang menerimanya, bukan kepada bahasa yang anda sedang baca.
Notice of Breach of Contract (Absence Without Leave)
Date: [DD/MM/YYYY]
To: [EMPLOYEE FULL NAME]
[EMPLOYEE NRIC]
[EMPLOYEE ADDRESS]
Delivery: A.R. Registered Post / Email to [EMAIL] /
WhatsApp to [PHONE]
Subject: Notice of Breach of Contract of Service (Absence Without Leave)
The attendance record and the date the absence began
The record of contact attempts
The section 15(2) recital
The demand for a written explanation, and the deadline
The consequence of not replying
The operative wording is withheld. It is the part that gets read out in cross-examination, and it is the part you are paying for. Ayat operatif surat ini dirahsiakan. Itulah bahagian yang dibacakan semasa pemeriksaan balas di mahkamah, dan itulah bahagian yang anda bayar. See what else is in there → Lihat apa lagi yang ada di dalamnya →
Notis Kemungkiran Kontrak Perkhidmatan (Tidak Hadir Tanpa Cuti)
Tarikh: [DD/MM/YYYY]
Kepada: [NAMA PENUH PEKERJA]
[NO. KAD PENGENALAN]
[ALAMAT PEKERJA]
Perkara: Notis Kemungkiran Kontrak Perkhidmatan (Tidak Hadir Tanpa Cuti / AWOL)
Rekod kehadiran dan tarikh mula tidak hadir
Rekod percubaan menghubungi
Petikan Seksyen 15(2)
Tuntutan penjelasan bertulis, dan tarikh akhir
Akibat jika tidak membalas
Every staff-facing document is written twice, and the Malay is written rather than machine-translated. The letter your staff actually reads is the letter your file keeps. Setiap dokumen untuk pekerja ditulis dua kali, dan versi Bahasa Melayu ditulis, bukan diterjemah oleh mesin. Surat yang dibaca oleh staf anda adalah surat yang tersimpan dalam fail anda.