A reminder to not over react to disciplinary matters involving social media. A Dairy business who dismissed an employee for gross misconduct for a ‘selfie’ they felt would damage the company reputation were found to have unfairly dismissed him.
The company were accused of failing to provide a fair disciplinary hearing due to their pre-conceived ideas about the implications of the employee’s actions, of making a knee jerk reaction in deciding that the business reputation was damaged when there was no evidence of this, resulting in a dismissal that was disproportionate and therefore unfair.
However it is still a lesson to foolish employees as any award this employee will receive will be reduced by 60% as he was considered to have contributed to his own dismissal.
