Client Area

Men Behaving Badly

Over the last few days, with the exception of a jokey article about Paul the ‘psychic’ octopus (who has predicted a win for Spain against Germany today),World Cup fever has largely been replaced with news of the police operation to find and capture suspected armed killer Raoul Moat.

Searches have now been centred around Rothbury in Northumberland. Raoul Moat is wanted over the shooting of three people, one of whom died of his injuries.

In this case, Mr Moat has just been released from Durham prison, but employers sometimes have to deal with the aftermath of employees behaving badly outside the workplace. There is no right to automatically dismiss, but employers may be able to impose a disciplinary sanction including dismissal.

In reaching a decision whether to discipline and award a sanction employers should consider:

  • the severity of the misconduct
  • whether the conduct impacts on the employee's ability to do his work
  • the extent to which the conduct interferes with or damages (or has the potential to interfere with or damage) the employer's reputation or legitimate business interests
  • any mitigating circumstances
  • an employer may also be able to instigate disciplinary action on the basis that the employee had breached an express contractual provision, for example, not to bring the employer into disrepute.
  • If the employee had less than one year's service then depending on the circumstances, the employer may choose to opt for dismissal.

If you find yourself in a situation, whereby you need to discipline an employee for bad behaviour (whether inside or outside of the office) give us a call.

Russell HR Consulting provides expert knowledge in HR solutions, employment law training and HR tools and resources to businesses across the UK.

Subscribe to our free monthly HR newsletter. Russell HR Consulting employment law newsletters are emailed automatically to our ever-growing number of subscribers every month.

Latest blog posts