It can be pretty frustrating when you have a disciplinary matter to resolve and the meeting is persistently postponed because the employee’s chosen support person is unavailable.
What can you do about it? Do you really have to continue rescheduling and allowing time to lag on and on? The simple answer is no. Case law has shown us that while the employee does have the right to choose their own representative, this can not impede the process.
So, if you’re faced with this debacle, the best approach is to outline some options to the employee and put the ball in their court as to which one to choose.
The Employment Court recently overturned a 2016 ERA decision, forcing Smiths City to recompensate hundreds of staff for unpaid work meetings to the tune of $1.5M.
The retail chain expected staff to turn up at 8.45am – 15 minutes prior to the official start of their 9:00am shift – for daily sales meetings. Smiths City argued the meetings were unpaid because they varied from store to store, and attendance was not compulsory, but Judge Inglis viewed it differently. She said the meetings were conducted according to a standardised template provided by the company, and although the meetings had an informal tone, the workers were expected to attend and therefore it constituted a work activity and they should be remunerated for them.
The ruling went on to focus on the fact that many of those affected employees were minimum wage earners, who would therefore drop below the minimum wage threshold once the additional time had been taken into account.
It’s a slightly confusing concept to get your head around, but is easier to understand with an example.
I’ve recently been engaged to resolve an employment issue arising from a personality clash – essentially there are two people who have to work in close proximity with frequent interaction, and they just don’t get on.
There was no catalyst to the breakdown in communication – after all, no single raindrop is responsible for a flood. But rather it was a sequence of events that resulted in a strained working relationship with communication at the heart of the issue. This was not a situation where one person was clearly at fault, and both parties felt the blame lay with the other person. Read More »