The growing number and diversity of employment-related class actions suggest they won't drop off "any time soon", and positive duty non-compliance is a key risk area to watch, a lawyer warns.
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.
All employers should consider putting in place a workplace s-xual harassment prevention plan, even though such plans are only expressly prescribed in one jurisdiction, according to a risk management expert.
Recent events have shone a spotlight on whistleblowing, placing employers firmly on notice that their response to a protected disclosure could be subject to intense scrutiny. Watch this webcast to understand the role HR plays in this challenging space.
