An employee who was sacked with five minutes' notice has been awarded more than $27k by the Fair Work Commission after it found that, in a profane workplace, telling a manager to "get f-cked" did not warrant summary dismissal.
Mediation following s-xual harassment complaints might be necessary to ensure employees understand appropriate behaviour and communication in the workplace, but it can be risky to force parties to be involved, an investigations specialist warns.
It was unfair of an employer to end a worker's contract after a minor incident, despite his earlier "absolute final warning" for accusing an HR manager of killing his colleague.
An employee who was described as not the "archetypal victim of s-xual harassment" has been awarded $150k in damages, after a tribunal found he was humiliated and suffered psychological injuries when he had to clean up a staged "s-x romp".
The Fair Work Commission has ordered two employers to compensate employees they sacked for serious misconduct after conducting flawed investigations, and has found another two employers fairly dismissed employees for aggressive behaviour.
A ruling that an employer unfairly sacked a worker for tagging colleagues in s-xually explicit material online highlights one of the complex HR hot spots employers are likely to face this year.
An employee who spat during an altercation with a colleague has been reinstated, after a commission found his employer's instructions to investigators led to a biased report.
Recent Fair Work Commission rulings deal with abusive workplace behaviour; perceived bullying in competitive environments; and an important jurisdictional question.
Workplace bullying complaints continue to pose significant challenges for employers, including where the behaviour doesn't meet the legal definition of bullying or the threshold to make a claim. Watch this HR Daily Premium webcast to understand key lessons from cases where bullying complaints interact with other claims and issues.
What constitutes "best practice" when managing neurodiversity at work is evolving all the time. Watch this HR Daily Premium webcast to learn how to embed neuroinclusive practices into HR programs and every stage of the employment lifecycle.
