After a tumultuous few years through the courts, an employer’s decision to dismiss a fighting employee has finally been upheld by the Full Bench of the FWC.
The crux of the decision rested on whether years of systemic workplace bullying outweighed the employee’s extremely aggressive actions.
Luckily, the employer’s workplace investigation was not in question.
Recently the Fair Work Commission outlined its expectations for the new national workplace bullying regime to commence on 1 January 2014.
As an unprecedented jurisdiction and with novel legislation, the FWC has admitted that it will be a trial and error process with teething problems to be expected.
So far, a model approach to the management of bullying applications and a draft bench book are the latest pieces of the emerging workplace bullying puzzle.
The countdown to the introduction of new national anti-bullying measures is on.
With only six weeks to go before amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) come into force on 1 January 2014, employers and HR professionals are now under the pump to understand how these changes will inevitably affect their workplace.
The HR Investigator has done the hard yards for you, unpacking the new workplace bullying amendments to assist employers in understanding the impact these laws will undoubtedly have.
We tell you what you should be doing now.
Safe Work Australia plans to publish its guide against workplace bullying by the end of November 2013.
Yet another bungled workplace investigation has demonstrated the importance of covering all the bases when it comes to investigating serious misconduct in the workplace.
Even where an employer has a clearly valid reason for an employee’s immediate dismissal, it cannot rely on the valid reason alone. Time and again procedural flaws have brought employers’ workplace investigations undone.
Despite acts of significant gravity committed by the employees concerned, this employer learned a tough lesson about the importance of procedural fairness in HR investigations.
We are only 12 weeks away from 1 January 2014 when new workplace bullying legislation comes into force. Do you know the difference between a workplace bully and someone who is just rude?
Despite behavioural defects that raised “serious issues” in the eyes of the Fair Work Commission, this decision contains yet another clear warning for employers who blindly accept complaints about workplace bullying.
Coupled with a flawed workplace investigation, this employer was unable to properly defend its employee’s dismissal.
