Three workers who spent time congregating and socialising when they should have been working were unfairly dismissed, a commission has found in laying some of the blame with management.
A raft of new tribunal decisions are instructive for employers on how to manage bullying complaints and handle disciplinary action following employee misconduct.
Employers can't rely on any general principle to dismiss employees for reputational damage, so those without an explicit policy requiring workers to act consistently with their good reputation could be taking a significant risk, a lawyer warns.
The Fair Work Commission has rejected the findings of an HR manager's misconduct investigation after hearing she failed to interview key witnesses, including the accused employee.
The Fair Work Commission has slammed an employer's investigation and dismissal of an employee for leaking "confidential HR information", describing the process as a "very regrettable display of incompetence".
An unfair dismissal decision highlights that in some circumstances it will be fair for an employer to sack a worker for serious out-of-hours misconduct that has no connection to work, an employment lawyer says.
Discussions of a s-xual nature "have no place at work", the Fair Work Commission has ruled in finding an employee was fairly sacked for asking a colleague at work if she'd had an abortion.
An employer must pay a worker $110k in damages, after an appeal court found the terms of his contract required more than an "opinion" of wrongdoing to justify his dismissal.
Some employers have successfully stepped up to the task of managing psychosocial safety, but in many other workplaces, initiatives are falling flat. Join us for an HR Daily webinar to understand what's holding back progress in this critical space and how to move forward.
