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An employer has failed to convince a Federal Court full bench that a director merely acted upon an HR specialist's recommendation to dismiss an employee for misconduct, and wasn't driven by an "improper motive" when making her decision.

Justices Berna Collier, Jane Needham and Amelia Wheatley accepted that the HR specialist provided assistance throughout the disciplinary process, but nonetheless wasn't a decision-maker.

In May 2022, Serco Citizen Services' operations director dismissed the learning and development lead, after finding he had behaved unreasonably towards a subordinate. This behaviour included treating the subordinate less favourably after she returned from leave, and not telling her the colleague who replaced her would continue job-sharing her role.

The L&D lead subsequently claimed he was sacked because he had complained about his manager and the director...