What is a suspension pending investigation?

You are called into an office, handed a letter, asked for your access card and told to go home while something is investigated. Nobody will say how long. Colleagues will assume the worst.

This guide is part of our Discipline at work: warnings, hearings and dismissal, which links every guide on the topic.

It feels like a punishment and it is treated as one socially. Legally it is meant to be something quite different, and the gap between those two things is where most of the distress sits.

Two different things called suspension

Precautionary suspension removes an employee from the workplace while an allegation is investigated. It is a holding measure. It is not a sanction, it is not a finding, and it should not be described as one.

Punitive suspension is a sanction, imposed after a disciplinary hearing at which misconduct was found, as an alternative to dismissal. It is usually unpaid or partly unpaid, and it requires the full fair process that any sanction requires. The Code of Good Practice: Dismissal, 2025, which replaced Schedule 8 of the Labour Relations Act from 4 September 2025, lists suspension alongside counselling and warnings as one of the graduated disciplinary measures an employer may use; that is this punitive kind. The Code says nothing specific about precautionary suspension, which is governed by the case law below.

Everything below is about the first kind. If you have been suspended as a penalty after a hearing, you are in the territory our guide on disciplinary hearings covers.

It must be on full pay

This is the non-negotiable part and the one employers most often get wrong.

A precautionary suspension is on full remuneration. You are not working because the employer has decided you should not be at work, and that is the employer's choice rather than yours.

Stopping or reducing pay during a precautionary suspension is a deduction from remuneration, and it needs a lawful basis. Section 34 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act permits deductions only with written consent for a specified debt, or where required or permitted by law, a collective agreement, a court order or an arbitration award. "We suspended him" is none of those. Our guide on what can legally be deducted from your salary sets out the section.

So if your pay has stopped, that is the first thing to raise, in writing, and it is a separate complaint from anything to do with the underlying allegation. Our guide on what to do if your employer does not pay you sets out the routes for recovering it.

Benefits continue too. Medical aid contributions, pension contributions and leave accrual do not pause because you are at home.

You do not have to be heard first

This is the finding that surprises nearly everybody, including some employers who go to unnecessary trouble.

In Long v South African Breweries, decided in 2019, the Constitutional Court confirmed that where a suspension is precautionary and on full pay, there is no requirement that the employee be given an opportunity to make representations before it is imposed. The Labour Court had been right to set aside an arbitrator's finding that the absence of such an opportunity made the suspension an unfair labour practice.

The reasoning turns on prejudice. A precautionary suspension is not a disciplinary penalty, and the prejudice to the employee is substantially reduced by the fact that full pay continues.

Two practical consequences.

Do not build your case on not having been heard. It is the argument employees most often reach for and, on this issue, it is the weakest one available.

Do not conclude that anything goes. The holding is about a prior hearing. It is not authority that a suspension can be unpaid, indefinite, or imposed for an improper purpose.

When it does become unfair

A precautionary suspension can amount to an unfair labour practice relating to suspension, which is a distinct claim under section 186(2)(b) of the Labour Relations Act and does not require a dismissal.

The circumstances that get there:

It is unpaid or partly unpaid. Straightforwardly wrong, as above.

It runs indefinitely with nothing happening. A suspension that is genuinely precautionary implies an investigation that is actually being conducted. Months passing with no charges, no interviews and no explanation is the commonest complaint and the strongest one.

There was no reason for it at all. An employer should be able to say why the person's presence at work created a risk: interference with witnesses, access to evidence, the seriousness of the allegation, the safety of others. Suspension as a reflex, or for a trivial allegation, is vulnerable.

It was imposed for an improper purpose. To sideline somebody, to punish a grievance or a protected disclosure, or to create pressure to resign.

The employee has been treated as guilty. Announcing the suspension to clients and colleagues in terms that imply misconduct, or stripping a person of title and duties publicly, causes damage a full-pay suspension was not supposed to cause.

Inconsistency. Others facing the same allegation were left at work.

What to do if you are suspended

Get it in writing. The allegation, the reason for the suspension, the date it starts, the fact that it is on full pay, and who to contact. If you were told verbally, ask for the letter.

Confirm the pay position immediately, in writing. Do not wait for the first short payslip.

Check your contract and the disciplinary code. Some codes impose their own limits, such as a maximum period or a review requirement, and the employer is bound by its own code even where the general law is more permissive.

Ask for a timeline, in writing, and ask again at intervals. A paper trail of unanswered requests is what turns "this is taking a while" into evidence. If the requests go nowhere, a formal written complaint is the next step, and our grievance letter template gives you a starting point.

Comply with the terms. Stay away if you have been told to, return the equipment, and do not contact witnesses. An employee who goes to the office to plead their case, or who phones colleagues to find out what was said, hands the employer a second and much cleaner allegation.

Keep your own copies now. Anything you are entitled to that is on a system you are about to lose access to should be secured before you hand the laptop back. Take only what is properly yours, because removing company information is itself misconduct.

Say nothing substantive about the merits until you have advice. Our guide on warning statements makes the same point in a criminal context and the instinct is identical: people explain themselves into trouble. Your version belongs in the disciplinary hearing, if there is one, and our guide on preparing for a disciplinary hearing explains how to get ready for it while you are at home.

Do not resign. A suspension is not a dismissal, resigning ends your claims, and the fact that it is unpleasant is not constructive dismissal. Our guide on constructive dismissal explains how high that bar actually is.

Referring it

An unfair labour practice dispute relating to suspension is referred to the CCMA or the relevant bargaining council, and the referral period is 90 days from the date of the act or omission, which is considerably longer than the 30 days that applies to dismissal. Our CCMA deadline checker works out the dates, and our guide on unfair labour practices sets out the categories.

Two realistic notes.

Think about what you actually want. If the investigation is moving and the pay is correct, a referral may achieve less than a letter asking for a timeline. If you have been at home on full pay for five months with no charges, that is a different matter.

Compensation, not vindication. The remedy for an unfair suspension is usually compensation, and the amounts are not large. That does not make the claim pointless, particularly where a pattern is being established, but it is worth knowing before you invest in it.

If you are the employer

Four things keep a precautionary suspension defensible.

Pay it in full. Everything else is arguable; this is not.

Have and record a reason connected to risk, not to convenience.

Actually investigate, promptly, and tell the employee what is happening at intervals even when there is little to say.

Keep it confidential. Tell people only what they need to know, and do not describe the person as being under disciplinary action when they are not.

Worked example

This example is illustrative. A financial manager is suspended while an allegation of irregular payments is investigated. She is handed a letter, told she is on full pay, and asked to return her laptop.

She was not asked for her side of it first. After Long, that is not by itself a defect: the suspension is precautionary and paid, and the employer was not obliged to hear her first.

She confirms in writing that she understands the suspension to be on full pay, asks for the allegation in specific terms, and asks for an indication of the investigation timeline. She complies fully and contacts nobody at work.

At the end of the first month she is paid in full. At the end of the third month nothing has happened, and her two written requests for a timeline have gone unanswered. At the end of the fifth month she is still at home, still paid, and still uncharged. The company has told a client that she is "not currently in the role pending a process".

The complexion has changed. There is now a real argument that the suspension has ceased to be precautionary in any meaningful sense, and the unanswered written requests are the evidence of it. She has 90 days from the relevant act or omission to refer an unfair labour practice dispute, and she has something to refer.

Had her pay been stopped in month two, she would have had a much simpler complaint on the same day it happened, and she should have raised it then rather than saving it.