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An employer was entitled to sack an employee for his "repeated poor performance, bad punctuality and unexplained absenteeism", but its procedural failings made the dismissal unfair, the Fair Work Commission has found.

In unfair dismissal proceedings, Flick Anticimex told the Commission it sacked the pest technician in April this year because of "genuine" performance and attendance issues, and for "fraud", in the form of falsifying work records.

It claimed, for example, that on 4 April the employee had only actioned two of six scheduled jobs and, when asked what he'd been doing all day, he said he was "trying to find parking and it was raining"...