When an employee engages in misconduct, their behaviour needs to be addressed by their employer.
The required discipline will depend on the seriousness of the misconduct.
General misconduct is improper behaviour of a less serious nature, such as consistently coming into work late, misusing their mobile phone during company hours, bad attitude towards customers etc.
For less serious acts, a manager should provide an employee with a verbal warning and keep a note of the date and warning on their employee’s files. If the behaviour is repeated, or if further or more serious misconduct occurs, then the manager can invite the employee into a workplace meeting to discuss the issues.
The employee should be given a warning about the meeting, should know what the meeting relates to and should be given the opportunity to bring a support person. During the meeting, the manager should have someone else from the business in the room with them, they should discuss any previous verbal warnings and put forth the allegations to the employee and give them a chance to respond.
If the employee’s response is unsatisfactory, then they may require a written warning. The manager should close the meeting and deliberate what was said in the meeting, and then in a few hours or the next day, they can issue the employee with a written warning if necessary.
The warning should be clear that if behaviour/conduct does not improve, then the employee’s job is at risk of termination. The manager should then monitor the employee’s behaviour and provide more warnings if necessary or they may have potential grounds for termination if further misconduct occurs.
Serious misconduct is where an employee behaves in a way that is inconsistent with continuing their employment such as:
- causing serious and imminent risk to the health and safety of another person or to the reputation or profits of their employer’s business
- theft
- fraud
- assault
- sexual harassment
When an incident occurs that may constitute serious misconduct, an employer must send the employee home with pay if they need to investigate what has occurred and they must also invite the employee in for a meeting to discuss the allegation and hear their response before making a decision to terminate.
Serious misconduct does not require previous warnings and the employer does not have to give the employee notice of their termination.
Please see the attached various templates for you to utilise during this process.
Please contact the WR team by filling out the form below or calling us on 08 8291 2000 before terminating an employee at any time. As this is a complex area, we recommend you seek professional advice before considering dismissing an employee.
We can also assist with drafting or reviewing your warning or termination letters before you send them to your employee.
