|
Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.
And so too does the legal standard for workplace incompetence
require fair warning by your employer before you can be lawfully fired
without termination pay.
More than ever, courts are increasingly calling for employer evidence of
fair warning about performance deficiencies prior to an employee’s
dismissal. In other words,
judges frown upon the sharp-practice of employers terminating workers
without notice, taking the employee by surprise, and otherwise failing
to advise about the possibility of termination should performance not
improve within a reasonable time. Accordingly,
the streetwise employment lawyer can defend even the most incompetent
employee on this often-overlooked ground that the company breached its
common-law duty to warn its worker of imminent dismissal for cause.
While case law continues to develop in this area, this country’s
largest employers continue to make the mistake of failing to provide
multiple warnings prior to dismissal, failure to provide these warnings
in written form typically required, failure to provide reasonable time
period in which employees can improve their job performance, and failure
to explicitly spell-out the warning that employee’s failure to improve
will indeed result in actual dismissal from work.
Accordingly, the streetwise employment lawyer will jump on any of these
deficiencies at trial to argue (a) employer’s failure to warn and even
(b) employer condonation of the wrongfully dismissed employee’s
behaviour. Just another
practical tip for our wrongfully-dismissed employee clients - and our
own “fair warning” to vulnerable employers out there.
|
