They worked Friday, did not answer on Saturday, and have not been seen since. Money is owed in both directions and nobody has decided what happens to it. Most venues resolve this by waiting, which is the one option that is not neutral.

Somebody worked Friday. They did not answer on Saturday, and they have not been seen since.

⚠️ There is money owed to them, and possibly money owed to you — and in most venues the decision about what happens next is made by nobody, over several weeks, by default.

⚠️ What this page cannot tell you

⛔ Whether pay may be withheld for any reason, what must be paid and by when, what may be set off against it, what has to be issued in writing, and what any of it means once somebody has effectively stopped working are employment law questions with strict answers where you are. ⛔ In most places, unpaid work must still be paid regardless of how somebody left.

⛔ This page recommends no arrangement and takes no view on any. ⭕ Ask an employment adviser before withholding anything, before setting anything off, and before treating anybody as having left.

⭕ What follows is the operational half only: who decides, when, and what the record has to show.

Why this is unusually common here

Four structural reasons, and none of them is about the individual.

The gap between working and being paid

⇒ ⭕ Somebody who is owed two weeks has two weeks of reasons to come back. ⚠️ ⭕ Somebody paid at the end of each shift has none, which cuts both ways and is worth knowing.

⇒ Paying People At The End Of The Shift

Leaving was never a process

⭕ Nobody was ever told how to give notice, because nobody was told anything at the start either. ⚠️ ⭕ Simply not returning is the only exit that was ever described, by example.

⇒ The Trial Shift That Decides Nothing

The signs were there and were not read

⚠️ ⭕ Dropped shifts, later arrivals, less contact. ⭕ The pattern is visible in your own records for about two weeks beforehand, and almost nobody looks.

⇒ The Two Weeks Before Someone Quits

And there is often something unresolved about money

⇒ ⭕ An advance, a deduction they disagreed with, a share they never understood. ⚠️ ⭕ Disappearing is what people do instead of a conversation they expect to lose.

⇒ The Split Nobody Has Explained

The four things that are actually unresolved

⭕ Separating them is most of the work, and almost nobody does it.

Work already done and not yet paid

⛔ ⚠️ This is the one with the least room for judgement in most places. ⭕ Whatever else is unresolved, unpaid work is usually its own question and does not wait for the others.

Anything advanced or outstanding the other way

⇒ ⭕ A loan, a float difference, equipment. ⛔ Whether any of it may be set off against pay is a question for your adviser, and it is where venues most often act first and ask afterwards.

⇒ The Money You Lent Somebody In March

Whether they have left at all

⚠️ ⭕ Three days of silence is not the same as a resignation, and treating it as one is a decision with consequences. ⛔ What you may conclude, and when, is a question for your adviser.

And what happens to their guests

⭕ This is the one that is purely yours to decide and the one that gets left longest.

⇒ Why Your Best Staff Leave in Month Four

What waiting actually does

Five effects, and waiting is not the neutral option it feels like.

It makes the amount harder to establish

⚠️ ⭕ Hours from three weeks ago, reconstructed from memory and a partial rota. ⭕ The figure you eventually produce is the one that will be disputed.

It hardens their account of it

⇒ ⭕ Somebody who has not been paid for a month has a story about why, and by then it is settled in their mind whatever you say next.

It is watched by everybody still working there

⭕ How this is handled is the clearest statement you will ever make about how people are treated. ⚠️ ⭕ The people watching are the ones you are trying to keep.

⇒ The Rules You Enforce Only Sometimes

It leaves their guests with nobody

⇒ ⭕ Guests who asked for that person are still asking for weeks afterwards, and getting an answer nobody prepared.

And it leaves the rota short without saying so

⚠️ ⭕ The shifts get covered informally and the gap never appears anywhere as a vacancy, so it is never filled.

⇒ The Shift You Filled At Six

What to do in the first week

⭕ Nothing here involves deciding anything about pay. That part goes to your adviser.

Establish the hours immediately

⇒ ⭕ On the first day, from the rota and the till, while it is all still recoverable. ⚠️ ⭕ This is the single thing that gets harder every day and it takes twenty minutes.

Make contact once, properly, and record it

⭕ One message that is answerable — not four across three weeks. ⛔ What it should say is worth asking your adviser about, because it may matter later.

Write down what is outstanding both ways

⚠️ ⭕ Your figure, their figure if you have one, and what each is based on. ⭕ Written on day one it is a record. Written on day thirty it is a reconstruction.

And do not decide anything about the money yourself

⛔ ⚠️ Withholding, setting off, or holding pay until something is returned are exactly the actions with the strictest rules. ⭕ Ask before doing any of them, not after.

What to do about the rest of it

Four things that are entirely operational and get forgotten.

Close their access the same day

⇒ ⭕ Systems, keys, group messages, the booking platform. ⚠️ ⭕ This is not about suspicion — it is the same list you would work through for somebody who left properly.

Decide what guests are told, once

⭕ One sentence, agreed, used by everybody. ⚠️ ⭕ Four different answers from four staff is what guests actually experience, and it costs more than the departure did.

Take the advert down when the role is filled

⇒ The Advert You Never Took Down

And put the shift in the rota as a gap

⚠️ ⭕ Covered informally means invisible. ⭕ A named vacancy gets filled; an absence that everybody absorbs does not.

⇒ The Agency Staff You Booked For Saturday

What makes it happen less

⭕ Three changes, all of which are cheaper than one of these.

Say at the start how to leave

⇒ ⭕ One line in the first conversation. ⚠️ ⭕ People who know how to leave properly usually do, and the ones who disappear were mostly never told there was another way.

⇒ The Training That Happens On The Floor

Shorten the gap before pay

⭕ The shorter the gap, the smaller the amount left hanging when somebody stops. ⛔ Whether you can change it is a question for your adviser.

And read the two weeks before

⚠️ ⭕ Dropped shifts and reduced contact are in your own records. ⭕ A conversation in that window is the cheapest thing in this entire page.

⇒ The Report You Open Every Monday

What good looks like

The day-one test

Ask what was recorded on the first day somebody stopped coming. ⇒ Hours and outstanding amounts means it was handled. Nothing means it is being waited out.

The single-message test

⚠️ Count the attempts at contact. One clear message beats six, and six reads as pursuit.

The consistency test

Working     — every guest who asks gets the same sentence
Not working — four staff, four answers, and one of them is speculation

Three to hold

1  Waiting is not neutral — the figure gets harder to establish every single day
2  Unpaid work is usually its own question and does not wait for anything else
3  Everybody still working there is watching how this is handled

Where the record has to sit

Hours worked and unpaid, anything outstanding the other way and what it is based on, the contact made and when, and what guests are being told — written in the first week, with the other operating records. ⛔ Settle with your adviser what may be paid, withheld or set off before deciding any of it. Kept there, the amount is established while it is still establishable and the people still working there see it handled properly. Kept nowhere, a figure nobody can reconstruct becomes a dispute you cannot win, and the shift stays quietly uncovered for months.

⇒ The Money You Take Off Someone's Pay

The Last Pay Of Someone Who Never Came Back