A people and culture team "singularly failed" to meet with an employee in a timely manner to discuss his redeployment opportunities, meaning his redundancy wasn't genuine, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.
It wasn't reasonable for an employer to replace an employee's full-time colleague with two untrained casuals, who worked fewer hours and on different days, a commission has ruled in a psychological injury dispute.
Accepting an employee's resignation without clarifying a misunderstanding about her role amounted to a constructive dismissal, the Fair Work Commission has found.
Being sacked for serious misconduct after regularly complaining of workplace bullying and harassment would have made a manager feel like "a grave injustice had been perpetrated", the Federal Circuit Court has accepted in adverse action proceedings.
The Federal Circuit Court has ordered an employee to pay $125k of his employer's legal costs, finding his actions during general protections proceedings were "so manifestly unreasonable, there must be consequences".
The Fair Work Commission has agreed to redact certain parts of a published decision, after an HR manager belatedly realised it would include "sensitive personal and medical information" she submitted as evidence.
A recent general protections penalty decision contains three major lessons for employers about this "different beast" of a regime, according to a workplace lawyer.
A manager should have realised that a $2.2 million offer to settle his long-running adverse action case was the best outcome he could realistically expect, the Federal Court has commented, in making a costs order against him.
Employers and HR practitioners continue to make some avoidable mistakes after dismissing employees, which increase their likelihood of losing claims in the Fair Work Commission, a workplace lawyer says.
Resigning may well have been the right decision for an employee who didn't trust HR to take her workplace complaints seriously, according to the Fair Work Commission, but this didn't mean the employer's conduct forced her hand.
Costly legal disputes continue to highlight the many risks employers face when managing, disciplining, or dismissing employees while they are absent, injured or incapacitated. Attend this webinar for an up-to-date review of the legal framework applying to workplace absenteeism, injury and incapacity, and lessons from recent case law.
