Certificate of absence of an employee from the workplace: what is it for, how to draw it up, sample

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Published: November 20, 2019

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The practice of depriving an employee of bonuses or even dismissal for absenteeism, including for good reasons, if the person did not notify management of his absence from work and did not receive permission, was standard until 2021.

Dismissal for absenteeism
Decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the admissibility of warnings about absence from work via SMS Judicial practice
Position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation
How will the decision affect practice for working citizens?

By the decision of the Constitutional Court, an employee now has the right to notify management of his absence from work for objective (valid) reasons by SMS or other convenient method, without requiring the manager’s consent. If, at the time of absence from work, the employee has an officially issued sick leave, there may be no notice of “absenteeism” at all.

Management actions in case of employee absence from work

The absence of an employee is recorded in the time sheet. Until the reasons for absenteeism are clarified, “NN” or the digital code “30” is written next to the employee’s last name. If the timesheet is kept manually, then before establishing the circumstances of the employee’s absence, notes should be made in pencil in order to correct them later; if on a computer, then after clarifying the circumstances of the employee’s absence, the notes in the original document will also need to be corrected.

In cases where the management of the enterprise is not one hundred percent sure that the employee is sick or has other valid reasons for not showing up for work, an absence report should be drawn up every day, after which, on Friday, a summary report for the entire week can be drawn up.

In addition, it is advisable to send written notices of absence from work to the employee (at his place of residence) with requests to explain the reasons for the absence. All these documents will have evidentiary value in cases where the case goes to court. Since the law does not regulate the actions of the employer in any way, each organization has the right to independently develop an algorithm of actions in such situations, relying on judicial practice and its own experience.

Basic Rules

The act is created in two copies, each of which is of equal value. Printed or handwritten - it doesn't matter. The main thing is the personal signatures of the relevant persons.

This act does not have a unified template for everyone, so employees of organizations can draw it up in free form or according to a specially developed and approved template within the enterprise. It can be drawn up on a regular A4 sheet or company letterhead, either by hand or on a computer. The fact of the employee’s absence from work must be clearly noted.

Instructions for filling out a certificate of absence from work

The act has a standard form from the point of view of office work and should not cause great difficulties when filling out.

The title is written in the center of the top line.
Just below is indicated the locality in which the company issuing the act is registered, as well as the date of its preparation. Then the exact time of execution of the act (usually closer to the end of the working day).

Next, in free form, you need to record the fact of the employee’s absence.

First, the last name, first name, and patronymic of the person on whose behalf the document is being filled out are entered in this part of the act.
Then the witnesses (employees of any departments) are entered, indicating their positions, surnames, first names, patronymics, and the date on which the employee’s absence from the workplace was noted is entered.
After this, information regarding the absent person : his position (according to the staffing table), last name, first name, patronymic, number and date of the employment contract under which he was employed.

Then here you need to certify that the reasons for absence from work are unknown to the absentee’s colleagues.

The last part of the act includes the signatures of the employees included in the commission. They must also be placed opposite the corresponding positions with mandatory decoding. It is not necessary to certify the act with a seal, since it relates to the internal document flow of the company.

Is it necessary to write a memo regarding the absence of an employee?

A memo against an employee is a document that is drawn up for the offending employee in order to convey to management information about his disciplinary action.
Along with this form, the responsible persons also draw up an act on the employee’s absence from the workplace, which accurately records the time of absence, measures taken to establish the employee’s location and other information.

After both of these documents are transferred to the manager, he can study the circumstances of the incident and make a decision on early termination of the employment contract with the employee due to absenteeism.

But such a step requires complete and accurate execution of all supporting documents, so it is best to prepare a report not “retroactively,” but immediately at the moment this violation is discovered.

You must first make sure that this is not a forced absence, for example, due to illness. Therefore, you must first try to contact the employee and find out the reason for the absence. And if the connection cannot be established, or the employee cannot reliably explain the reason, proceed to the procedure of dismissal for absenteeism.

The law does not contain a mandatory requirement for drawing up a memorandum. In this situation, it is just another document confirming absenteeism, and also conveys information to management. If the company is small, then it may not be formed, since the director usually has the opportunity to see and control the work activities of each of his subordinates.

On the other hand, registration is desirable in the case where the employee has not been at his place for more than four hours, and the administration wants to fire him for violating labor discipline.

The report can include not only information about the offense committed by the employee, but also recommend to management the degree of punishment. This is important in large companies, when the administration may not know all the employees by sight, or the immediate boss wants to mitigate the punishment for him. In this situation, a note will help to correctly assess the situation and choose an adequate punishment.

Attention! Information about possible punishment should be of an advisory nature only, since the final decision on dismissal lies with the manager, and he can make a decision without taking into account the opinions of subordinates.

The importance of drawing up a note increases if, in addition to disciplinary liability, management also wants to bring the employee to financial responsibility. The report will be included in the package of supporting documents and may contain all the necessary information.

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Important! A report is an information document, and therefore its preparation is not enough to properly justify dismissal due to absenteeism. The main form that will record the absence of an employee is the act of absence of the employee from the workplace.

After drawing up the act

In the future, if it turns out that the employee did not have valid reasons for absenteeism, these facts are recognized as absenteeism, which entails punishment through an order of disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal. If an employee, having appeared at work, provides the employer with written evidence of valid circumstances of absence from the workplace, then he is released from any liability and legally begins to perform his official duties.

Decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the admissibility of warnings about absence from work via SMS

The Supreme Court (SC) of the Russian Federation allowed using an SMS message to warn colleagues and the director about absence from work for serious reasons, while receiving a positive response is not a necessary condition.

If an employee does not come to work, having serious reasons for this, and even took measures to ensure the work process in his absence, such an employee cannot be fired.

Arbitrage practice

In November 2021, the Constitutional Court completed the consideration of the case of a Moscow resident who was fired from Russian Post for absenteeism for an allegedly unexcused reason.

The applicant was urgently forced to go with her minor nephew to the emergency room, as the boy broke his nose while playing on the playground.

The boy's mother, the applicant's sister, could not accompany her son because she was in the hospital after suffering a stroke, and the child had no other relatives. The employee notified her immediate supervisor about the special situation, agreed with her colleague that she would replace her at work, and the next day brought documents from the doctor confirming that the boy had been with a traumatologist for a certain period of time.

But the employee’s immediate supervisor considered these arguments unconvincing, and Russian Post terminated the employment contract with the employee.

The plaintiff went to court, but the judge refused to reinstate her because he considered the evidence of the need for her to be in the hospital with her nephew insufficient . The judge also referred to the fact that the woman did not receive permission to be absent from work from her manager. The Court of Appeal agreed with the colleague's opinion and upheld his decision.

The trial court said that the only fact that should be taken into account is that the woman did not, in accordance with the established procedure, obtain the consent of her manager to miss her shift.

The Constitutional Court ultimately declared such a decision unlawful.

The woman provided the employer with all evidence of a valid reason for absence from work:

certificates of joint residence in the same apartment with a boy and his seriously ill mother, his own sister;
certificates from doctors confirming that the boy’s mother is in the hospital;
documents confirming the child’s injury and his minority.

Plus, the employee found a replacement, so the work process was not affected.

As a result the Supreme Court reinstated the woman in her position and ruled that the need to obtain permission from management to miss work if absence from the workplace is impossible for valid reasons is not necessary - it is enough to notify management via SMS or any other convenient method.

Position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation

The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation ruled that the employer and the courts must evaluate the totality of all the circumstances of the case, including the objective reasons for the employee’s absence from service (rulings of the Constitutional Court dated February 19, 2009 N75-O, dated September 24, 2012 N1793-O, dated June 24, 2014 N1288-O, dated June 23, 2015 N1243-O, etc.).

The employer himself must provide evidence that clearly shows that the employee committed a gross violation of labor duties (paragraph 38 of the Resolution of the above-mentioned Plenum).

“It is mandatory for the correct resolution of the dispute to establish the circumstances and reasons (whether valid or not) of the employee’s absence from the workplace,” the judge of the Constitutional Court stated.

The court of first instance did not accept any evidence from the dismissed woman and did not consider the motives for her action. This position of the district court did not comply with legal norms and was therefore overturned by the Supreme Court.