Personal Grievances

An interesting case in the Herald last week about a woman won $9,000 compensation after she was sacked for forwarding on an adult e-mail.

Now I’m one of those who lives to send and receive jokes at a workplace.   Generally those I forward onto have similiar sense of humour and all is well.  Occasionally you can misjudge it, such as the time a journalist sent me a link to a website which has this nice cute gnome or something softly telling a story, so as you do you turn up the sound to hear, and then 30 seconds into it, the computer at the top of its voice starts yelling out “Porn, porn this person is looking at porn”.  I got sucked in by it, and burst out laughing.  I instantly forwarded it onto a dozen people, and not all were quite so amused to have that yelling out from their PCs!

Anyway the point is that e-mailed jokes are quite common, and sometimes you may misjudge.  However despite this, I am surprised and somewhat appalled that this employee got a payout.

For at the end of the day an employer has a right to say what is and is not acceptable.  Sure I would advocate they don’t needlessly make it too restrictive but each employer decides for themselves.

She was given a “first warning for her high numbers of forwards, joke emails and the questionable material she was sending using company computers”  in December 2005.  Now regardless of what you think is funny or not, if your employer has given you a warning, you simply stop forwarding on non work e-mail.  Or at least do it through a non work account such as hotmail.

She then was given a second written warning in August 2006 for the number of forwarded e-mails, amongst other things.  Again, unless you want to be sacked, you should stop doing it or look for another job.

Then later that month she did it again, and two weeks later was sacked for it.

Yet she still managed to get $9,000 from the Employment Relations Authority, it seems because what is offensive was not well enough defined.

Now I think that shows up how damn difficult it is for employers.  They gave her two previous warnings.  They were in writing.  They had clearly warned her numerous times for her use of work e-mail inappropriately.  All she had to do was stop forwarding joke e-mails on.  Having had two formal warnings this should be a no brainer.

Now what makes it worse is Labour Minister Ruth Dyson is complaining some employers were paying costly settlements at an early stage because they perceived the formal process to be expensive and protracted.

Well of course most employers settle at an early stage.  The employment authorities places such a reliance on process over substance, employers like the one above end up paying out, when really the employee is 99% at fault.

Process is important.  Employees should get warnings and chances to improve.  They should be allowed to explain their actions.  But even when they do all that, employers still get pinged.  That is why employers settle even when they are not at fault.  Not because they are charitable and like giving money away.  So if Ruth Dyson wants less settlements, she needs to change the law to focus more on substance over process.