Unauthorised absence (AWOL)

You must report any absence in line with your departmental reporting procedures. If you do not follow those procedures, then your absence may be deemed to be unauthorised, and this may be treated as a disciplinary offence.

Unauthorised absence, also known as being absent without leave (AWOL), is when an employee fails to attend work when they are supposed to, hasn’t obtained authorisation from their line manager for taking the time off and doesn’t have a good reason for failing to report their absence. 

Things that are considered to be unauthorised absence include:

• not returning to work after being on annual leave or other authorised period of leave
• being absent during the period where a request for annual leave was declined
• failing to attend work for any other reason without authorisation

When sickness-related absence may be considered as unauthorised absence

There may be occasions where a period of sickness-related absence may be considered as unauthorised absence, including:

• not following the council's sickness absence reporting procedure
• not providing certification for a period of sickness absence
• claiming sickness absence during the same period that a request for annual leave was declined

Further details of when sickness-related absence may be considered as unauthorised absence can be found in the sickness absence policy.

Making contact

If you are unable to attend work for whatever reason, such as if you’ve been involved in an accident or there is a family emergency, you must contact your line manager as soon as you possibly can.

If you don’t come into work and haven’t made contact, your line manager will try to contact you – and possibly your emergency contact as well. It’s really important that all your contact details are up-to-date on My Oracle in case of an emergency.

It’s also important that you answer any calls from your manager or respond to any messages they leave. Your manager will be trying to understand what’s happening and how they can support you.

If there’s no valid reason for the absence

If you don’t contact your line manager and/or they consider that you haven’t provided a good reason for your unauthorised absence, and/or you fail to respond to your line manager’s attempts to contact you, your absence may be investigated under the council’s disciplinary policy.   

If you don’t return to work or fail to attend any meetings arranged as part of the disciplinary process without good reason, the meeting will go ahead without you, and the outcome will be based on the information that is reasonably available at the time. You will be informed of the outcome in writing. 

If you do return to work or provide a fit note (sick certificate) at any point after an invite to a meeting has been sent, the meeting will still go ahead to explore the reasons for your unauthorised absence. 

In exceptional circumstances (for example if your line manager believes there could be an underlying health issue contributing to your absence), they may decide to rearrange the meeting.

The manager conducting the meeting will give you every opportunity to explain the reasons for your unauthorised absence before deciding on the outcome.

Serious instances of unauthorised absence may be considered as gross misconduct.

Withholding pay for unauthorised absence

In addition to any disciplinary action that may be taken and depending on the circumstances for your absence, it is possible that you will not receive any pay for the period of your unauthorised absence.