At the core of any Employer-Employee relationship emanates a common law duty of an Employee to render services to an Employer; however, it happens every so often that the Employer will require the Employee to render services beyond their contractual hours, commonly known as “overtime”. Overtime is essentially an instruction that requires an agreement, an [...]
In its simplest form, insubordination is a refusal to follow lawful and reasonable instructions given by an employer. Insubordination may manifest itself either directly or indirectly. An example of direct insubordination would be when the employer instructs the employee to perform a task and the employee states, "I will not" or, "I refuse". An example [...]
Gross insubordination is viewed by our Courts as serious misconduct. In terms of The Code of Good Practice: Dismissal, gross insubordination may even, depending on the merits, warrant dismissal of the accused employee for a first offence. What makes gross insubordination such a serious form of misconduct is the fact that employees are expected to [...]
There has been much confusion among employers as to what constitutes insubordination and how it can be accurately identified. Insubordination is literally defined as “defiance of authority”. This would indicate that an insubordinate employee would be one who is challenging the authority of another employee who acts in a supervisory /managing capacity over them. Insubordination [...]