Ask A Manager: Did My Employee Quit Or Is She In A Ditch Somewhere?

[minoanmiss]

My mom just called to ask for advice. She hired a new office manager, “Jane,” a few months ago. Yesterday Jane left for lunch and never came back. She had some performance issues, so my mom thinks she may have quit, but she’s also worried Jane might be in a ditch somewhere. Jane hasn’t answered the phone or text messages. I gave her advice about filing a missing person report, mailing the last paycheck, etc. (I’m a lawyer), but beyond that I didn’t know what to say. Would it be weird to go to Jane’s house and check on her? Is there anything else she should do?

Some people do quit jobs by just leaving at lunch and never coming back, so it’s possible that that’s what happened.

But it’s also possible that something terrible happened and Jane is in a hospital or worse.
While that may be less likely, it’s enough of a risk that you don’t want to just say “oh well, I guess she quit” and be done with it, in case it does turn out that something awful happened.
However, I wouldn’t advise that an employer go to an employee’s house to check on them. If she did quit, it’s going to feel awfully intrusive to have her employer show up there. Plus, there’s not much you can do if the person doesn’t answer the door — at that point you still won’t know any more than you do now.

What I’d do is this:

First, call her and leave a voicemail saying, “We’re concerned that you didn’t return from lunch today. We’re worried about your welfare. Would you please contact us so that we know you’re okay?” (In a case like this one where it seems plausible that the person just walked off the job, you could add this: “If you don’t want to return, we’ll make arrangements to get you your paycheck and wrap up other loose ends. But primarily we’re concerned about your safety.”) If you don’t hear from the person in a reasonable time period, call again and this time say, “We’re really worried about whether you’re okay and we’re going to send the police to your home to do a welfare check, so please let us know if that’s not necessary.”

Then, call the police, explain that someone didn’t return to work when expected and that you’re concerned for her safety. Ask if it’s possible for them to do a welfare check, where they go by her house and make sure she’s okay. There have been stories on this site about people who were found dead in their homes as a result of work-initiated police welfare checks, so if you genuinely worry about her safety, this is worth doing.

Of course, you might not do this if you work in a field where no-shows are really common. But they’re not in most professional fields.

Asking for a welfare check might end up being annoying to a person who just wanted to quit their job without hassle, but that’s a consequence of disappearing with no explanation. And it’s worth risking annoying someone in case something else did happen.

Comments

n.b.

[minoanmiss]

The comments make for gruesome and fascinating reading. I'm a bit disappointed that only a couple people in a very short thread had the objection to this that I do (increasingly in the US it appears that the police are not here to help people who are not White and at least reasonably well off). OTOH, maybe that's because they couldn't come up with a satisfactory solution (I don't have one).

[lilysea]

Yeah, I'm Australian and based on news stories I've read online I would have serious reservations about calling the US police to do a welfare check on any one who was one or more of:
a) a person of colour;
b) Autistic;
c) mentally ill.

All too often welfare checks on people who are a, b, or c end up with the police causing serious harm or death to the person whose welfare they are supposed to be checking up on.

Re: n.b.

[purlewe]

I usually don't read comments so I will believe you. I agree, welfare checks in the US don't work and are usually more harmful than not. There should be another way to check on someone. Some kind of social worker or somesuch who does this instead of police with guns. But I do know of 2 people who were found dead in their homes when they didn't come to work. (and others who when called by their work had just woken up bc their alarm clock batteries had died) If this person isn't returning phone calls, even to simply say "I am fine, stop calling" then the only thing I can think of is finding someone who can go to their house to check. (maybe not a supervisor, but just a person in the company? HR? I dunno.)

[ashbet]

A police welfare check from work is how my late ex-husband (and still close friend) was found dead in his apartment, so I understand the necessity — he lived alone, and no one else expected to hear from him every day.

(It was extremely sad, he had an undiagnosed brain tumor and apparently passed very suddenly.)

Here’s hoping that the woman just quit unprofessionally, and is actually okay! (I haven’t read the AAM comments.)

I very much sympathize with the concern about sending cops to the house of a POC and possibly putting them in danger, but sometimes you really need to do a welfare check if all other means of contact are providing no response.

[rmc28]

An ex-colleague of mine was forced to 'retire' due to age rules about her specific type of post (probably illegal but no-one has - yet - taken them to tribunal over it). She then took up part-time work in a different bit of the organisation, and one day she didn't turn up as expected. When her workplace couldn't get hold of her, they asked the police to check on her. But the cat-sitter she had booked for her working days went in as normal, before the police arrived, and found her body :-(

(and in response to minoanmiss, I'd hesitate too because the UK police have issues too, although in this case the person was both white and well-off)

[sally_maria]

Our work policy is to try and contact the person, and if we don't hear from them, to contact the next of kin listed on their paperwork - fortunately it never has been anything tragic, but we would rather be sure.

[cadenzamuse]

Oh, I like next of kin as an alternative to police for a welfare check. Presumably they're more interested in the person's welfare and less likely to shoot the person for being POC or mentally ill or poor.

[ayebydan]

I had that thought. Everyone here gives an emergency contact at the very least. That person is probably better equipped to start a search if there was a problem anyway.