The terms and conditions of employment described in a contract of employment usually include a myriad of items such as: the type of work expected to be performed by the employee, the place and hours of work, the salary or wages of the employee as well as leave and bonus entitlement. These are to be … Do Employers Need Employee Consent to Change Employment Terms?
Progressive discipline, which is also sometimes referred to as corrective discipline, is a strategy used to address and to correct employee behavioural or performance issues. Unlike punitive measures which solely focus on punishment, progressive discipline aims to correct and improve an employee’s performance or behaviour before more severe measures are taken. It involves a series … Effectively Managing Employees through Progressive Discipline
The very purpose of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (‘CCMA’) is expeditious resolution in order to equitably serve those most vulnerable within society, to afford those persons whose road would be littered with ‘potholes’ in the pursuit of litigious relief – an easier and less formalistic route to justice. A Commissioner presiding over … Power of CCMA Commissioners to dismiss matters due to lack of diligent prosecution.
Employers with multiple operations or businesses are no strangers to the unique economic and operational obstacles of the business landscape in South Africa. Even when employers have exhausted all the available means to ensure that their operations and their workforce across all their businesses remain unaffected by economic difficulties, they may still have to implement … Navigating Retrenchments: Key Lessons on the Viability of ‘Bumping’ from Recent Labour Court Ruling
Theft in the workplace is a serious form of misconduct that places significant strain on a business’s profitability and sustainability. To effectively address this problem, employers need a comprehensive strategy that includes preventative measures, detection strategies, and equitable disciplinary actions. In most cases of theft, dismissal as a sanction is appropriate, as the prohibition against … How Employers Should Respond to Workplace Theft
Provocation is one of the key defences for charges of assault or fighting on duty in the workplace. In our employment law context, provocation as a defence potentially affects the outcome of disciplinary inquiries. Understanding how provocation is evaluated and applied under South African labour law is crucial for both employers and employees to ensure … Provocation as a Justification in the Workplace
Employee abscondments in the workplace presents a significant challenge for employers, impacting operational efficiency and team morale. This issue not only disrupts business operations but also complicates the process of addressing an employee’s absence from the workplace efficiently, and it complicates the balance between the need for effective management and the rights of employees. What … Terminating Employees for Abscondment
Employers often underestimate the value of reducing the agreements that they have with their employees to writing, as they feel that verbal agreements would often suffice. However, in the realm of employment law, reducing written particulars into a contract of employment is crucial for establishing a clear, mutual understanding between employers and employees. A written … Written particulars of employment and contracts of employment
The terms “protected disclosures” or “whistleblowing” are not new phenomena to the employment law landscape, but there is often great uncertainty about how protected disclosures are dealt with in practice, and the lengths to which our judiciary would go to protect an employee’s rights in these cases. The case of Railway Safety Regulator v Kekana … Automatically unfair dismissal for a protected disclosure – the case of Railway Safety Regulator v Kekana
In order to maintain fair labour practices in the South African workplace, procedural and substantive fairness are vital considerations. Procedural fairness highlights the procedure followed by an employer when disciplining an employee for misconduct or negligence. Procedural fairness ensures that an impartial, fair, and thorough disciplinary inquiry is conducted, that the employee is informed of … Navigating Workplace Misconduct vs. Negligence: Best Practices for South African Employers
