I have a strange situation that I need some advice on.
I work for a small marketing agency as a senior web developer. Last week a junior developer in my team resigned. He was still in his probation period so only had to give 7 days notice, he appeared to be leaving us amicably.
This is where things start to go a bit weird.
He was fine and well on Friday afternoon when we left the office and he was excited to be involved in the live deployment of a website he'd been working on for the coming Tuesday.
On Monday morning he emailed myself and my line manager informing us that he would be a bit late that morning as some trains were cancelled and others were running late. By lunchtime he still hadn't appeared and the train company website indicated that the earlier problems had been resolved.
We tried calling him to check on his progress and a revised ETA. There was no answer on his phone and it kept ringing out. We have also tried texting him and sending him messages on WhatsApp but have received no response. The WhatsApp messages are listed has having been delivered but not read.
He didn't re-emerge on Tuesday morning which prompted us to call his emergency contact number, which went to voicemail after a long period of ringing. He still hasn't shown up today and there is still no response on his or other updates on his social media accounts.
Now I realize that he could have just decided he didn't want to work his notice and is ignoring us but there is a small chance that he may have had an accident or something while on route to the office. Basically we are just worried about his well-being and want to know that he is OK.
As an employer what is the most appropriate way to handle a missing employee?