Employers Rights when employee walks out without working notice

[RedKennedy]

any advice greatfully received:
my replacement at work indicated at the beinning of week she had been offered another job - we reminded her of her notice, but helpfully offered her that if we found someone before her 6 weeks was up we would let her go, and also she had 7 days holiday which she could take - basically we have been very understanding - she has told us today that she has to start the new job immediately and is leaving this Friday (told us wednesday evening)

Im furious as this now means that from tomorrow I have to go from 3 days a week to full time with no notice, to cover her. We are a very small and specialist company, so
a replacement may take weeks.

Can anyone help me with what rights employers have when empoyees breach their contracts like this?
All websites I have found seem to be from employees POV.

Many thanks

I used to be a GM of a hotel although left 3 yrs ago so don't know if law has changed.She should be required to give you notice in writting.

However I don't believe there is much you can do.Although I really sympathise with your predicament.

Obviously any holiday entitlement she will forfeit and lose any bonus or perks as she is effectively walking out on you. She will only get pay upto the day she has worked but if paid monthly wont get paid until the date its normally paid out.

Apart from refusing a reference in the future or appealing to her better nature that her future employer can see she has little integrity she could do to them what she is doing to you.

Good luck hope you find a great new member of staff.

You could sue her for breach of contract but there's no point really from a cost point of view.

Not a lot you can do about it, although obviously if her new employment is subject to satisfactory references she is jeopardising that.

Agree, there's sod-all you can practically do - she is breaking her contract but she's got a new job so she won't care and it would be pointless hassle to sue her.

However, you can put factual information about this situation in her reference so if she ever needs it for another job... (no slagging off, no opinions, just the bare facts).

Is it true that (FBB please confirm) the company can reclaim the costs for paying other people to do the job from the girls wage?

I have a vague memory of this happening where I work when a GM walked out.

juney not sure about that, or how it would work. Breach of contract is what it is, so any legal case would be on that basis. I suppose if an employer brought a claim against someone for breach of contract and demonstrated their losses, it might result in something like that, but I can't think of many circumstances where bringing a case like that would be worth the employer's while.

Obviously the person would not get paid for days not worked anyway, so in that sense other people would not need paying from the person's wage as when they (other people) were doing the job the person who had walked out wouldn't be iyswim?

If there were additional costs in terms of paying other people over and above normal salary, an employer could risk witholding part of final salary to cover that. The risk would be a claim for unpaid wages, but an employer would be gambling that someone who has walked out without giving notice wouldn't bring such a case. Which they probably wouldn't, I guess.

Best thing for employers to do imo is to not pay any salary over and above days actually worked, and not to give any more than bare facts, dates of employment, for future references, then write it off to experience.