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Davies Ndumiso Sibanda, Labour Matters

MANY employers and employees struggle to implement codes of conduct that they would have negotiated and registered because they would have registered a document they do not fully understand resulting in costly errors.

Once a code of conduct has been registered or there are new managers and supervisors who will administer it there is a need to have them trained. The same applies to a new workers committee.

The starting point is to recognise that a code of conduct is a workplace collective bargaining agreement involving the employer, managerial employees and non-managerial employees. It must also be noted that others use the NEC codes of conduct and some the National Employment Code of Conduct making it important for one to know, which code of conduct is applicable to the particular case.

Not every human resources practitioner can train managers, supervisors and workers committee in the administration of the code of conduct. It must be someone who has a full grasp of business operations, labour relations and labour law. 

It must be noted that labour law belongs to the bigger family of business law and as such while the applications of the code of conduct is about justice and fairness at work, it is also about ensuring a disciplined workforce is available to assist meet the organisation’s goals or business goals balancing the two required skills.

The training of administrators of the code of conduct has to ensure that all who administer the code of conduct are clear on that discipline handling is mainly about “human asset” repair and that dismissal is a costly option of last resort as it is a form of asset disposal.

Those who administer discipline must always bear in mind that people are assets of the business and have a value attached to them as they have skills, experience and knowledge that keep the organisation going and cannot easily be replaced overnight without upsetting productivity. There is need to consider the amount of investment the organisation has put to get the employee where he or she is. There is experience gained, there is training given, coaching given, development programmes attended, institutional memory held by the employee and others. 

All these have to be taken into consideration before dismissing an employee. There are cases of managers who see all employees they found in the organisation as useless or they just want to replace with friends and abuse the code of conduct to dismiss employees resulting in massive brain drain and loss of capacity to move forward.

Many managers wrongly think by being a manager they are always right and only to be stopped by external justice institutions where they are ordered to reinstate an employee or pay damages. Where those who handle discipline are trained such problems are few.

There is also a need for all who handle disciplinary cases from both the employer and workers to be familiar with key labour cases as they provide guidance on handling cases and minimise having cases that are lost at a huge cost outside.

In conclusion, the decision to discipline employees must always involve whether the best option is asset repair or asset disposal and must be just, fair and be guided by the code of conduct, substantive fairness and procedural fairness.