Find out in which cases communications made by WhatsApp are valid and effective.
In these cases, yes. In the day-to-day running of your company, you usually communicate with your employees via the WhatsApp messaging application (to warn them that an employee is going to be late for work, to entrust a certain task to an employee who is out of the office...). Now, an employee has just informed you via this application that he is going to leave voluntarily, and you do not know whether this notification should take effect or not. Note. Well, you should know that in the following cases, notifications made by WhatsApp are valid and take effect in the same way as a notification by written letter:
- Resignation. If an employee communicates his or her resignation and his or her message reveals a clear and unequivocal desire to resign. This occurs, for example, if he/she indicates to his/her colleagues that he/she no longer wants to work for the company, leaves the workplace and then sends a message by WhatsApp to his/her manager indicating that he/she is resigning. Note. Such communication is valid as resignation does not require any formal requirements. Therefore, keep the message.
- Probationary period. As there are no formal requirements for the notification of termination of a contract due to failure to complete the probationary period, you can also make such a notification by WhatsApp. Note. However, it is always preferable to document the termination in a document signed by both parties, so that there is no doubt that notice of termination has been given.
- By agreement. There are agreements that validate the use of WhatsApp for some communications, such as calls from discontinued fixed lines.
Not in these cases. However, for other types of communications, sending by WhatsApp is not valid. Therefore, do not use this method to notify a dismissal (whether objective or disciplinary), a transfer or a substantial modification of conditions. Attention! In these cases, the law obliges you to communicate the measure reflecting the facts or causes that motivate it and the effective date. Therefore, as all this information does not fit in a WhatsApp message, deliver a letter with all the details.
It is valid for an employee to communicate his or her voluntary resignation by WhatsApp if the message clearly reveals that he or she wants to leave the company.