The Employment Relations Authority has awarded over $9,000 for unjustified dismissal following a personal grievance claim by an employee who swore at, and threatened, his supervisor and manager, and threw things around the workplace.

If handled correctly this misbehavior could have justified a dismissal, but the employer failed to carry out a fair process.

1. It failed to tell the employee of all the allegations.
2. It allowed the supervisor (alleged victim) to carry out the investigation.
3. It did not interview the employee, so he could not give explanations (even if he had known of all the allegations).
4. It did not consider what penalties had been imposed on other employees in past incidents.
5. It tried to use prior “warnings” as justification for the dismissal, when no proper process had been followed to justify those “warnings”.

Reinstatement was refused because the employee had a history of bad behavior and disrespect towards management, and a year had passed since the dismissal.

Remedies (originally set at $18,000) were reduced by 50% for the employee’s contributing bad conduct.

Interest and costs were also awarded against the employer, and they would have incurred their own legal costs to defend the claim, so it was an expensive failure to follow a fair process.

If you need help getting your disciplinary process correct give me a call on (04) 473 6850.