You Resign With Four Weeks' Notice and the Boss Says 'Don't Bother Coming In': That Can Be a Dismissal

The worker started with ATM West Pty Ltd, a small business that maintains a fleet of automatic teller machines, as head technician in October 2024. On 18 November 2025 she met the company's head of revenue at a coffee shop. His account was that he raised concerns about attendance, service delivery and parts of the role she would not do, and that when she asked whether she was being "walked" he said termination was possible and that resigning was also open to her. Her account was that she was told the chief executive wanted her gone and she should go home and send a resignation letter. That afternoon she emailed her resignation, giving four weeks' notice.

The next day she handed back her laptop and phone. That afternoon the chief executive told her by phone, in a call she recorded, that she had 65 hours of leave owing and that "obviously we're waiving the four weeks' notice". When she asked about the missing four weeks' pay in December, he replied: "I don't understand you asking for wages when we agreed you would resign affective immediately." She lodged an unfair dismissal claim; the company objected that she had resigned voluntarily and, alternatively, abandoned her employment (report of the decision).

Deputy President Lake found the resignation on 18 November was not forced. A resignation counts as a dismissal under section 386(1)(b) of the Fair Work Act only where the employee was forced to resign by the employer's conduct. Telling an employee that termination is possible and that resignation is an option is different from telling them to sign a letter or face consequences, and, in the Deputy President's words, "the difference represents a line between forced resignation and voluntary resignation, a line which should be rigorously observed". The worker had raised resignation herself weeks earlier, her email did not say she was being forced and did not ask for the notice to be waived, and "walked" was her word, not the employer's.

The Deputy President raised the second point himself: "a termination during the notice period is still a termination." A voluntary resignation with four weeks' notice meant employment was due to end in mid-December. Instead the company ended it on 19 November, when the chief executive waived the notice and decided she would not be paid for it. The abandonment argument failed: returning company property did not show she had walked away, because the work could have continued without those items, and a single refusal to help with a task did not amount to renouncing the contract, particularly beside an email that plainly gave four weeks' notice. The result in [2026] FWC 3408, issued on 7 September 2026, was that she was dismissed at the employer's initiative on 19 November 2025, the objection was dismissed, and the case goes back to conciliation.

• If you resign with notice and your employer tells you to finish early, the employer has ended the employment. That opens the door to an unfair dismissal claim if you are otherwise eligible, and it usually means you should be paid for the part of the notice period you were not allowed to work. The Fair Work Ombudsman's notice and final pay page sets out the rules; our notice period calculator gives the minimum notice for your service, and the final pay calculator adds leave and other entitlements.
• Put your resignation in writing and keep it factual. If you believe you were forced, say so in the letter and say why. A letter that reads as voluntary will be treated as voluntary.
• "You can resign or we can terminate" is not, on its own, a forced resignation. Being told to sign a resignation or face adverse consequences can be. Keep a record of exactly what was said.
• Check the 21-day clock. If the employer ends your notice early, the dismissal takes effect on that day. Our unfair dismissal checker covers eligibility, including the small business and minimum employment period rules.