Accepting a resignation letter in Australia, a step-by-step guide

One of your employees has just told you they are leaving. Whether it came as a formal letter, a short email or a conversation at the end of the day, that message starts a short, largely administrative process that every Australian employer runs sooner or later: acknowledging the resignation, settling the last day of employment, organising a handover and paying out what is owed. The way you run that process decides whether the exit is a smooth, amicable one or the start of a dispute over notice, final pay or even whether the person resigned at all.

By the end of it you will have a written confirmation the employee can rely on, a locked-in end date, an agreed handover, a final pay calculation paid on time and a personnel file you can defend years later. One thing to understand before you start: you do not actually "accept" or "reject" a resignation in Australian employment law. The Fair Work Ombudsman puts it plainly: an employer cannot choose to accept or reject an employee's resignation. It takes effect when the employee communicates it, verbally or in writing. Your acceptance letter is really a confirmation and a record, and treating it that way stops you from making the most common mistake in this area, which is writing something that reads like a dismissal.

Before you start: what you need on hand

You can complete most of the process with what is already on your desk, but it is worth gathering these items before you write anything:

The resignation itself: note the date it was given and what the employee said, including any last day they nominated. Resignations can be verbal, so a written note of the conversation matters if the employee later disputes what happened.
The employment contract: the first place to check for notice, garden leave, post-employment restraints and confidentiality obligations. If there is no written contract, the award or enterprise agreement fills the gap, and failing that the employee may only owe reasonable notice.
The modern award or enterprise agreement: for most employees the minimum notice they must give comes from the industrial instrument, not the contract, so you need to know which one applies.
Service and leave records: continuous service drives the notice calculation under many awards and long service leave schemes, and your payroll records drive the final pay figure.
A handover picture: who will cover the role, what property the employee holds (laptop, keys, cards, uniform, documents) and what access they have to systems and client data.

The item that trips employers up most often is assuming every employee owes notice. Casual employees do not have to give notice at all, and employees not covered by an award or agreement do not have to give notice unless their contract requires it, in which case a reasonable notice period may be expected. Check the instrument before you assume the notice the employee gave (or failed to give) is wrong.

The steps for handling a resignation, in order

Acknowledge the resignation promptly

Send a short acknowledgement within a day or two of receiving the resignation. Thank the employee, confirm in writing that you have received the resignation, and say you will come back shortly with the details: the last day, how the notice period will be managed and the handover. Ask for a meeting to work through those points if you have not already scheduled one.

Prompt acknowledgement matters for two reasons. First, it removes uncertainty for the employee and for your team, which keeps morale intact while the handover is planned. Second, it creates a contemporaneous record that the resignation was given and received, which is valuable if the employee later claims they were dismissed rather than having resigned. Keep the acknowledgement short; the detail comes in the confirmation letter.

Pin down the notice period and the last day

Check the employment contract and the applicable award or enterprise agreement for the notice the employee must give. Under the award rules, the notice period starts the day after the employee gives notice and ends on the last day of employment. Public holidays fall inside the period and do not extend it.

If the employee gave the required notice, the arithmetic is simple: count forward from the day after the resignation was given.
If they gave less than the award requires, you have options, which are covered in the next step and in the hold-ups below.
If they gave more notice than they want to work (for example, a four-week resignation during a quiet period), you can agree with the employee to bring the end date forward.

The single most important output of this step is a date: the last day of employment. Everything else, the final pay, the handover deadline, when access is cut off, hangs off that date, so agree it and write it down before moving on.

Decide how the notice period will run

You have three realistic ways to manage the period between the resignation and the last day:

Work out the notice in the role: the default, and usually the best option where the handover needs the employee's active cooperation.
End the employment early with payment in lieu of notice: if you would rather the employee left immediately, or a few days before their nominated date, you can end the employment earlier. Because this is a termination by the employer, the National Employment Standards (the NES) minimums apply: under s 117 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) the employer must not terminate employment unless it has given written notice of the day of termination, or paid the employee in lieu, and payment in lieu must be made before or on the day of termination.
Garden leave: keep the employee employed and paid but away from work for all or part of the notice period, if the contract or award allows it. This is a practical risk-management option for client-facing, senior or technical roles where you do not want the employee working alongside clients or in the codebase during their notice. During the notice period the employment relationship continues unchanged, including pay and entitlements.

Whichever option you choose, state it clearly in the confirmation letter so there is no later argument about whether the employee was expected at work on a particular day.

Send a written confirmation of the resignation

Issue the formal confirmation in writing, even where the resignation itself was verbal. This is the "acceptance letter" and it should be clear, professional and complete. Cover at least the following:

The employee's name and the date of the resignation:
Confirmation that the resignation is accepted and the last day of employment:
How the notice period will be handled: working out the notice, garden leave or payment in lieu, and the difference between the last physical day worked and the official end date where they differ.
Handover expectations: the tasks to finish, the meetings to run, the client introductions and who takes over which responsibilities.
Return of company property: a list (laptop, keys, cards, uniform, documents) and a firm date for return.
Access and security: when system access and email will be removed, typically on the final day.
Final pay: what it will include and when it will be paid.
Ongoing obligations: confidentiality, intellectual property and any post-employment restraints that survive the end of employment.
A contact: who the employee should speak to for payroll or HR questions.

Keep the tone neutral and professional. This letter is a record that will be read closely if the exit later becomes a dispute, so avoid anything that reads as criticism, praise that overstates performance, or a description of the exit that the employee could later characterise as a dismissal.

Run the handover and lock down access

Agree a realistic handover plan before the last day: which projects must be finished or documented, who takes over each responsibility, and which knowledge-transfer sessions need to happen. Then handle the practical items in a checklist so nothing is forgotten:

Property return: collect the laptop, phone, keys, access cards, uniform and any documents or records the employee holds.
System access: remove access to systems, email and data on the final day, and nominate who is responsible for doing it.
Client and data protection: remind the employee in the confirmation letter of confidentiality obligations, and where client relationships are sensitive, plan the introduction of the replacement contact before the employee leaves.
References: decide your reference policy in advance so expectations are managed consistently.

Calculate and pay final entitlements

Final pay is the last pay an employee receives after employment ends. It must include wages owing for hours worked, including penalty rates and allowances, and any accrued but untaken annual leave. Under s 90(2) of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), if employment ends with untaken paid annual leave, the employer must pay the amount the employee would have been paid had they taken that leave, and the Fair Work Ombudsman confirms this includes annual leave loading even where the award or contract says loading is not payable on termination.

Final pay can also include, where they apply, payment in lieu of notice, redundancy pay and accrued or pro rata long service leave under the state or territory scheme that covers the employee. Sick and carer's leave is not paid out when employment ends.

On timing, the rules come from the award, the enterprise agreement or the Fair Work Act. Most modern awards require final pay within seven days of the last day of employment. Where the award or agreement is silent, the Fair Work Act requires payment at least monthly, and best practice is to pay in the next pay cycle without unreasonable delay. Payment in lieu of notice must be made before or on the day of termination, as noted above.

Issue separation documents and keep records

Two document tasks often get missed. First, where the employee is claiming income support, Services Australia may require an Employment Separation Certificate, which records the reason employment ended and details of termination payments. Second, under s 199 of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 (Cth), a person whose employment has ceased may request their former employer to give them an end-of-employment statement in the approved form, so respond promptly if asked.

For your own file, keep the resignation, your acknowledgement, the confirmation letter and the final pay calculation together. This is not just good practice: under s 535 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) an employer must make and keep employee records for seven years, and if a dispute later arises, those records are your evidence.

Where resignations get held up

Most exits follow the steps above without drama, but four situations reliably cause problems:

Short notice and deductions: If an employee gives less notice than the award requires, most awards allow an employer to withhold up to one week's wages if the employee is 18 or over, has not given the required notice and the deduction is not unreasonable. Only wages owed under the award can be withheld, not leave entitlements or other over-award payments, so calculate any deduction against the award terms before applying it.
A request to withdraw the resignation: Employees sometimes change their mind. The general position is that a resignation that was genuinely and unconditionally given takes effect and cannot be unilaterally withdrawn, but the circumstances matter: a resignation blurted out in the heat of a disagreement may not be treated as a genuine resignation at all. If you do agree to a withdrawal, confirm it in writing and treat employment as continuing.
Resignation or dismissal: Where an employee claims they were forced out or that the employer ended the employment, the characterisation of the exit becomes the whole dispute. The long-running Visscher v Teekay Shipping (Australia) Pty Ltd [2011] FCAFC 137 litigation is a reminder of how much turns on what was actually said and done around the resignation. If there is any live performance, conduct or grievance process at the time of the resignation, keep accurate records and take advice before you send a letter that characterises the exit as a resignation.
Leave during the notice period: An employee can take paid annual leave during notice only if you agree, and can take paid sick or carer's leave with proper notice and evidence if asked. Confirm in writing how any approved leave affects the end date and the final pay.

When to bring in a lawyer

Most resignations are routine and the steps above are enough to close them out. Legal help is warranted when the exit is anything other than straightforward: where the contract or award is silent or unclear on notice, garden leave or restraints; where the employee contests the resignation or claims they were pushed out; where you want to end the employment early, particularly for a senior or client-facing employee; where there are live disputes, misconduct allegations or sensitive intellectual property and client issues; or where long service leave across multiple states makes the final pay calculation genuinely complicated.

A lawyer in this situation would review the contract and the industrial instrument to confirm the notice period and the last-day calculation, advise on whether a deduction or garden leave is lawful, draft the confirmation letter or a settlement deed where terms need to be finalised, and sequence the offboarding so nothing is paid late and no step is missed. For a straightforward resignation the cost of that advice is rarely justified, but for a contested or high-value exit it is cheap insurance against an unfair dismissal or underpayment claim.

Getting the end date right

The detail most likely to decide whether this exit runs smoothly is the last day of employment. It is the one number the employee, payroll, the handover plan and your access controls all depend on, and it is where the most expensive mistakes are made: an end date that is a day off either way can mean a notice underpayment, a confirmation letter that reads like a dismissal, or a final pay that misses the award deadline.

Confirm the notice period from the contract and the award before you write anything, put the date in the confirmation letter, and pay everything that is owed on time. Acknowledge the resignation promptly, agree the handover, and keep a clean record of the exchange. Do that, and a resignation becomes a routine, defensible process that protects your clients, your data and your relationship with the departing employee. If any part of the exit is contested or unusual, take advice before you commit anything to writing.