Ashley’s Dismissal Case Study

Introduction:

This is a case study regarding Ashley who was wrongfully dismissed on suspicion of dishonesty. He had taken a faulty machine returned by a customer to his father’s house for repairing. Instead of the machine being taken to the store and wait for its turn to be repaired, he wanted to experiment and see whether

When Ashley was asked to explain, he said that he had asked for permission to repair the machine—which was a Pasture Tech 100—on behalf of the company. He had also purchased parts for repairing the machine, and was going to repair it as soon as he could. Despite this, he was still dismissed.

Substantive Issues

It was just mere allegations that were not substantiated. When the police inquired about the value of the machine, Jacob Tyler realized that there was no invoice for the machine, and simply suspected Ashley. He reported the case to the supervisor and advised that Ashley should be dismissed. This was done without proper investigations. No employee should be dismissed without substantive evidence on their wrongdoing (Anderson, 2011, p. 123).

The decision to dismiss Ashley was made so that the management could demonstrate to the other employees, how they will be dealing with dishonest employees. It was not based on any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Ashley.

The fact that the invoices for the parts intended to be used by Ashley to repair the machine were found in his account, shows that he was not hiding anything. After all, he told the truth and had been granted permission to try repairing the machine. 

Procedural Issues

Even though he had purchased the parts to repair the machine with his own money, the company did not appreciate that, and went ahead to dismiss him. Although a case of theft or dishonesty justifies dismissal and termination of employment, proper procedure should be followed in order to ensure that the employee’s rights are not violated (Kluwer, 2010, p. 1326).

It is true that dishonesty destroys trust and confidence in employees (Limited, 2011, p. 108), but a tribunal should be set up to investigate the alleged dishonesty. Since it has very serious repercussions on both the employee and the company. Since they might end up terminating an employee that would have been a valuable asset to the company.

If I were Agtech’s manager, I would have:

• Formed a tribunal or a committee to investigate Ashley’s conduct before dismissing him.
• Investigated the matter without bias to find out the truth.

If indeed he was dishonest, I would not dismiss him immediately, but give him a warning. 

Conclusion

In this case, there was no substantive issue to warrant for the dismissal of Ashly. The allegations were based on mere suspicion, and cannot be enough to warrant for the dismissal of an employee (Court, 1983, p. 108). The correct procedure that should have been followed was to form a tribunal, and investigate the allegations. So that the truth would be known, and a just decision made—based on facts—whether to dismiss Ashley or not.

References

Anderson, G. (2011). Labor Law in New Zealand. Kluwer Law International.

Court, N. Z. A. (1983). Judgments, Etc. of the Arbitration Court of New Zealand ... Department of labor.

Kluwer, W. (2010). Australian Master Human Resources Guide 2010. CCH Australia Limited.

Limited, C. A. (2011). McCallum’s Top Workplace Relations Cases: labor Law and the Employment Relationship as Defined by Case Law. CCH Australia Limited.