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An employee who set out to cause marital problems for his manager deserved to be sacked, but he was denied procedural fairness, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.

The employee began working for building services company Johns Lyng in a safety role in March 2020, offering OHS support to nine internal companies.

In July 2021, the company's national OHS risk and compliance manager invited the employee to a meeting with himself and the chief operations officer to discuss "some issues and concerns". These included that the employee had:

• sent text messages to the company's general manager that were designed to "cause relationship problems in his marriage";
• engaged in work that posed a conflict of interest and breached his employment contract; and
• neglected his duties on two occasions.

At the conclusion of the meeting the employee was immediately dismissed...