29/09/2015

The answer is not a simple yes or no, the cases illustrate it can go either way.

An employee worked as a retail sales assistant in a clothing store.  She was not feeling well and asked to swap shifts the next day with her colleague so she could start at the later time of 11 am.  Her colleague agreed and during the morning $5,000 worth of stock had been stolen from the shop.  It was not until at about 11.30 am when the employee arrived late to work that the theft was discovered.  The employer sent a text message the following day dismissing the employee.

The tribunal said the dismissal through text message deprived the employee the opportunity to respond to her employer face-to-face and as a result she was awarded close to $10,000 in compensation.  The tribunal also pointed out that termination through text message is immediately open for challenge as it can be inferred that the employer did not have sufficient confidence in the decision to act with conviction.

In contrast, an employee deliberately failed to use the correct material when spray painting glass due to stock supplies running low.  This ended up costing his employer $74,000 to replace the defective glass.  The tribunal upheld the dismissal by the employer through a text message.

In this case the tribunal said the dismissal was understandable because the employee was on leave, about to go overseas and the employer was seeking to resolve the issue as soon as possible in order to minimise the impact to its customers.  Furthermore, a face-to-face meeting was unlikely to make a difference in this case as there might not have been anything more the employee could have said that was not covered in the phone call to the employer shortly after the dismissal text message was received.

Lessons from these cases:

•    even if text messages are a common form of communication between an employer and employee, generally it is unlikely to be appropriate for a dismissal

•    normally the employer should give the employee the opportunity to have a face-to-face meeting or at least an opportunity to respond to the dismissal

•    employers should approach this method of communication for a dismissal with caution as a simple text message dismissal could potentially end up costing an employer a lot of time and money.

For further information, please contact Townsends Business & Corporate Lawyers on (02) 8296 6222.