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Davies Ndumiso Sibanda, Labour Matters
MANY employers dismiss employees and later regret their action when such decision comes back to bite them for various reasons.

There are many reasons why employees get disciplined, these include poor work performance by the employee, the employee being a “problem child” or the employee having breached the conditions of the code of conduct.

However, there are times when employees get dismissed not because of their fault but because of poor supervision by the employer and at times the employer’s processes will be at fault.

Before one decides to dismiss an employee, he should see the employee as an asset and the whole process of discipline handling should be seen as either asset repair or asset disposal and the decision to dismiss a worker should not be taken lightly as a dismissal is effectively throwing away an asset in which the employer would have used a lot of money training to be an experienced worker.

With present changes in legislation, employers’ choices when they want to terminate employment have been widened as the retrenchment regulations now provide a cheaper option to terminate a contract of employment without the hustles of going through the disciplinary process.

While retrenchment is pretty legal, we now see many employers using it to “dismiss” workers unfairly even over trivialities. This leads to employers regretting at times when they discover that they got rid of key skills. I know of a general manager who quarrelled with a geologist over the low grades of ore that were coming from underground.

In the heat of the moment, the general manager told the geologist to get a retrenchment package and leave so that the parties are saved the headache of discipline handling.

The geologist found himself with no choice but to take the retrenchment package and move on.

A few months down the line, the ore grades deteriorated further and the underground manager said he couldn’t help unless he gets guidance from a geologist.

The general manager found himself having to swallow his pride and hire the geologist as a consultant at a huge cost. There are many similar cases and in worse cases dismissing key skills has cost even chief executives their jobs.

Further, the present legislation makes it a requirement that dismissed employees should be paid a retrenchment package, while absurd, it is the law and can cost the employer a fortune for long service employees.

Before the employer decides to dismiss, he should look at the bigger picture, that is long term effects of his decision, short term impact on labour relations and productivity.

He should also look at costs that are related to the dismissal more so given that every dismissal now attracts a retrenchment package of one month salary for every two years worked.

The employer should also look at the possible costs related to the legal battle which in almost all cases now goes as far as the labour court and because most employers are not legally competent, there is a risk of losing the case at a huge cost.

Some employers use the option of “forced” resignations which they call mutual separation. While these work, they can still prove expensive where the worker later challenges the fairness of the whole process and the court looks at how the parties negotiated the contract.

In the event the court finds that there was no fairness, the agreement could be nullified at a huge cost for the employer. In conclusion, employers need to apply their minds before dismissing employees as dismissals could be costly.

Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on:
Email: [email protected]