The redeployment obligations confirmed by the High Court today might be "pretty straightforward" in obvious hypothetical scenarios, but they're likely to become "very tricky" for employers operating in the real world, a lawyer says.
A "very poor" attendance rate combined with repeatedly failing to notify or explain absences meant there were valid reasons to sack an employee, the Fair Work Commission has ruled.
It wasn't discriminatory to seek confirmation that an employee was fit to perform his duties, after he made "alarming" comments during a performance review meeting, a tribunal has ruled.
"Reasonable schemes reasonably implemented can miscarry without rendering them unreasonable," a commissioner has stressed, in rejecting the psychological injury claim of an employee who had a "troubling propensity for embellishment".
Despite signs of a "permissive attitude" towards name-calling at work, an employer was entitled to reprimand an employee for racial stereotyping a colleague, a commission has found.
The "optics" would be poor if an employer retained a senior employee who was convicted of domestic violence, a commission has found in rejecting his unfair dismissal appeal.
It was reasonable not to allow an employee whose ego was "dazzled" by other job offers to rescind his resignation, the Fair Work Commission has found, rejecting that the employer's conduct constituted a dismissal.
Losing a job held for nearly 30 years was likely to have an "extremely significant effect" on an employee, but she was "given every opportunity to avoid that outcome", according to the Fair Work Commission.
It's not uncommon for employees to find investigations stressful and upsetting, but this doesn't mean they're unreasonable, a Fair Work Commissioner has commented in dismissing a stop-bullying application.
Evidence that an HRBP actively tried to help resolve an employee's issues with a colleague's behaviour has helped an employer defend a constructive dismissal claim.
General protections claims are the fastest-growing category of applications in the Fair Work Commission, with reforms now underway to stem the tide. This webinar will discuss important developments in both procedural issues and case law.