The work book is an important document. Its pages contain data on the employee’s work activity, promotions, awards, length of stay in a certain position and other information that is taken into account when hiring a citizen for a new position, when calculating the amount of pension, compensation payments.
Therefore, the law provides for strict conditions for the maintenance and transmission of this document by the employer and owner. Read below about what exactly needs to be done with labor after an employee’s dismissal.
Is it possible not to receive a document after payment?
There is no exact answer to this question in the current legislation. However, as a general rule, the employer is obliged to hand over this document to the resigned employee on the day of his departure (Part 3, Section 35, Section IV, Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation dated April 16, 2003 No. 225). Moreover, if this requirement is not met, the company management may be held liable.
Thus, it is understood that the employee must appear in a timely manner for his document. Moreover, this is in the interests of the quitting employee himself, since in the future he will need a work book when applying for another job.
It is worth noting that some employees deliberately do not come for this document in order to accuse the organization of violating the norms of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation in the future. If there is a delay in issuing a work record, the company will have to compensate for the earnings that the employee was unable to receive due to the lack of a work record.
To protect itself from such a situation, the employer should send the dismissed person a written notice containing the requirement that the former employee should come to the organization and pick up his documents.
Act on refusal to receive a work book on the day of dismissal
How to compose it correctly?
An act of refusal to pick up a work book is a document that represents the employee’s documentary refusal to pick up his work book.
Unfortunately, many employers neglect to draw up this act due to the fact that they consider it unnecessary and do not see the point in it. But in fact, due to the absence of this act, the employer will not be able to prove that it is the employee who is the initiator of the lack of desire to take away the work.
Also, the employee may well recover a penalty from the employer for intentionally withholding his labor. In order to avoid falling for the bait of an unscrupulous employee, you should think about drawing up an act of refusal to receive a work book.
Filling
In general, there is no clear form for an act of refusal to obtain a work book. Many employers allow you to fill it out by hand. But also, many large organizations already have their own forms and writing samples. So, employees must write in this act their first and last name, the position from which they are leaving.
In the text of the act, he must indicate the reason why he does not want to take the work book with him. As a rule, the most common answer to this question is reluctance to engage in official work.
After this, the employee puts the date of writing the act and his signature and gives it to the HR department employee. He, in turn, sends the act to the folder with the employee’s personal file. At this point, the procedure for writing an act comes to its logical conclusion.
act of refusal to pick up the work book after dismissal.
How to receive it when sent by mail?
In accordance with paragraph 36 of the above-mentioned Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 225, if an employee does not show up for work on the day of dismissal, the work book can be sent to his address by mail.
The employer must remember that sending this document by mail is possible only with the written consent of its owner. Therefore, a corresponding notice should be sent to the dismissed person in advance.
At the same time, starting from the moment of sending such a notice, the employer is relieved of liability associated with the delay in issuing the work book.
If the employee does not mind sending him a work book by mail, then he must send written consent to the organization to use this method of delivering the document. After the employer receives official consent, he will send the work report by registered mail. The document can be picked up directly at the post office or ordered delivered to your home . You can agree with the employer about delivery by courier service.
How to give a work book to a dismissed employee if he does not pick it up?
The situation today is typical - the employee quit, took the payment and left the employer’s organization.
Now many roads are open to him, and he strives to conquer new heights. An employee can move to work in another part of the city, change his place of residence, or leave the country altogether.
People are all different, which means that the plans of each individual cannot be predicted. But sometimes, out of joy from the fact that the due period has been fulfilled, the payment has been issued, and no claims have been found, the employee rushes out of his place, sometimes forgetting about important documents. Surely many employers of large firms and corporations have many work books that their employees did not pick up on time.
Many employers who are not closely familiar with the Labor Code are racking their brains over what to do if an employee does not show up for a work book on the day of dismissal. Someone wants to get rid of them as quickly as possible by destroying them, someone decides to throw them away, someone completely hides them in the farthest drawer and forgets about the work they left behind.
The Labor Code has long developed a rule according to which work books must be dealt with only in one way and in no other way.
When should the document be sent?
Labor legislation does not specify the exact time frame within which the employer is obliged to send the work book to the former employee. However, it is in the interests of the organization itself to do this as early as possible.
Thus, the document should be sent immediately after receiving written consent to this method of delivery. It is recommended to do this on the same day, since the organization may be held accountable for delaying the issuance of a work book.
The document should be sent by registered mail with return receipt requested. If possible, the labor book can be delivered personally to its owner through a courier.
Separately, it is worth emphasizing that if a former employee has died, then his document confirming the periods of employment must be issued or sent by mail to close relatives (clause 37 of section IV of the above-mentioned regulatory act).
Completing and sending a notice to a dismissed employee
The obligation to send a notice to the dismissed person about the need to obtain a work permit is assigned by law to representatives of the personnel department. Such actions relieve HR officers of responsibility for late return of the document.
Since the dismissed employee has exactly 1 working day to receive his work, the notice should be sent on the morning following the last working day on which the dismissal took place.
In some cases, HR department employees unwittingly break the law by committing prohibited actions; it is strictly forbidden to:
- send a notice to the dismissed person by mail along with the work book (to carry out such actions, the official permission of the owner of the document is required);
- notify the former employee of the need to obtain the book orally (if he goes to court, it will be impossible to prove that the employer tried to notify the employee of the need to come to the enterprise to obtain the document);
- refuse to send a notice to the address of the employee who did not show up (in such a case, a fine may be imposed on the employer).
The notification is drawn up in free form, since there is no strict template for its preparation by law. However, the notification must include the following information: the date the paper was drawn up, the text of the request to appear with documents at the HR department, as well as the details of the parties.
Notifications are sent to all addresses (residence and registration), data about which is available in the HR department.
What happens if you leave it at the post office?
Sometimes an employee who quit, for one reason or another, does not pick up his work book from the post office. This can happen for various reasons, for example:
- went to another city;
- died;
- is in hospital;
- found himself imprisoned, etc.
In any of these cases, after a certain period of time, the work book will be sent back to the sender. In such a development of events, the employer is obliged to accept the document back and keep it until required , that is, until the employee applies for this paper again. This condition is stated in clause 43 of section VI of the RF Government Resolution No. 225.
The storage of the work book must be subject to strict adherence to the norms and rules prescribed in the Law of the Russian Federation of October 22, 2004 No. 125-FZ on archival matters.
Employer's liability
If the work book remains in the personnel department and the employer has not done anything to give it to the person who resigned, during any inspection he will be subject to administrative penalties. The fine will be:
- up to 5,000 rubles for an official;
- up to 50,000 rubles for a legal entity.
In exceptional cases, regulatory authorities may suspend the activities of an enterprise for a period of up to 90 days.
In some situations, the employer is exempt from punishment. It happens:
- when a citizen is dismissed from work for absenteeism;
- upon arrest and conviction of an employee;
- when a woman who previously worked under a fixed-term contract, the term of which was extended due to pregnancy, is fired.
Not only the manager, but also another employee responsible for registration, storage and issuance of work books can be fined. These responsibilities should be recorded in his job description. The responsible person is determined by the order of the enterprise. In the absence of such an order, the manager will bear the punishment.
Is it possible to refuse the paper version and is it necessary to do so?
Currently, workers have the right to choose between an electronic and paper work book. There are some nuances here that should be taken into account.
It is possible to refuse a paper document after dismissal. However, this should be done taking into account the following rules:
- The refusal must be sent by the end of 2021.
- In any case, the paper document must be collected from the employer. The fact is that the electronic labor record will reflect information only starting from 2021. In this case, all information about past periods will be contained in the previously issued labor certificate. If, when assigning a pension or calculating work experience, you need to confirm some periods of work until 2021, a paper work record will come in handy.
Thus, you should not refuse your work book upon dismissal, citing the desire to take into account work information in electronic form in the future. The paper version may be needed in the future, so it should be saved.
In general, it can be noted that the current legislation does not specifically regulate the situation when an employee refuses to pick up his work book when leaving the organization. Employees should remember that this is an official document that may be needed when assigning a pension, so the employment document should be collected from the last employer as quickly as possible.
Methods for solving the problem
The company may put itself at risk if the dismissed employee does not pick up his work book after the order. In case of untimely issuance of the book, the boss is obliged to compensate the employee for the wages not received for the entire period of delay.
In addition, when going to court, an employee may ask for compensation for moral damage received.
When a labor dispute arises, the employer is forced to prove in court that he followed the correct procedure for issuing the document. To return a work book to a dismissed employee, you must:
- The organization must ensure that if a dispute arises in court or a worker abuses his rights, it has evidence that it has fulfilled all important requirements. If a worker who refuses to receive a document came to the workplace on the last day, you need to make a report and record in it the fact of refusal to receive a book. The act must be signed by at least three employees of the company.
- If the employee is not at work that day, you will have to send him a notification about the need to come to pick up the document. This is stated in Article 84.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. If the worker refuses to receive documents and does not return to work. In this situation, the company has the right to relieve itself of responsibility for the long issuance of the document only by fulfilling the requirements of this article. All documents are sent by registered mail with a description of the contents and information about delivery.
- In the inventory you need to write down the name of the document and its registration number. You also need to get a receipt from the postman, which confirms the date of dispatch.
- If the employee does not pick up the work book after dismissal, it is necessary to save information about delivery, because it confirms the fact that the former employee received the official letter. In case of a dispute in court, these documents will help prove to everyone the fact that a message was sent about the need to return for work or to give permission to return it by mail.
- If you are wondering about sending this book by mail, this can only be done with the permission of the worker at the address he has chosen (clause 36 of the Rules for maintaining and storing documents, creating forms and providing them to employers). The sending procedure is identical everywhere.
Expert opinion
Semenov Alexander Vladimirovich
Legal consultant with 10 years of experience. Specializes in the field of civil law. Member of the Bar Association.
Norms and features
In some conflict situations, an employee may not agree with the dismissal and considers it necessary to reinstate himself in the workplace, so he often does not pick up his documents, including his work book. This is fraught with financial costs and problems for the company.
The legislation of the Russian Federation approves a strict procedure for dismissing an employee and completing the relevant documentation. The need to hand over a work book at the time of dismissal is prescribed by Art. 84.1 (part 1) of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.
A delay in the transfer of a work book means that the head of the enterprise is depriving the citizen of the right to work and the opportunity to earn money (Article 37 of the Constitution); without this document, a person cannot get a new job.
What to do and where to go if the employer does not pay?
If the employer does not hand over the work book, the employee will need to protect his rights by contacting regulatory authorities or the court.
First, you need to write an application addressed to the employer, which contains a request to return the work permit. If the employee’s demands are not met, then it is necessary to contact the regulatory authorities.
A complaint written by an employee can be submitted to the following authorities:
- GIT;
- prosecutor's office;
- court.
There are several ways to submit a completed complaint:
- Contact the inspectorate in person.
- Send by mail.
- Use the website onlineinspection.rf.
The complaint submitted by the applicant will be considered within 30 days. After the specified period of time, the employee will receive a written response from the authority. If the complaint is satisfied, the employer will be fined and the employee will be given his book. If the applicant receives a refusal, then all that remains is to file a claim in court.
Attention ! Go to court only if appeals to other authorities have not brought results.
