Browsing: Performance management | Page 9

Performance management and disciplinary processes shouldn't be scrapped if a worker becomes ill or makes a psychological injury claim during the process, but communication is key to managing their expectations, a senior workplace lawyer says.

A major employer has been blocked from appealing against a ruling that a series of injury-causing meetings didn't satisfy the definition of "performance appraisal" because it was a "vague, continuing, informal process".

An employer has been ordered to pay an injured worker $1.4 million in damages, after a court found it was vicariously liable for the acts of an aggressive and physically abusive manager who believed he was appointed to "kick" subordinates "in the head" after an industry downturn.

A full Federal Court has dismissed an appeal from a worker - whose injury dispute helped reform the administrative action test - against a finding that her injury arose from a performance appraisal and wasn't compensable.

A commission has commended an employer for its diligent enforcement of safety policies, but found it unfairly dismissed a worker by treating his breaches as misconduct instead of poor performance and not giving him a chance to improve.

The powers of elected health and safety reps are generally confined to their own work groups and don't extend to challenging an action, like a decision quashing an improvement notice, which affects other groups or workers, a commission has found.

An employer has been ordered to withdraw a warning it issued to a worker for a safety breach, with a commission finding it condoned the prohibited behaviour through its supervisors allowing it to become normal practice.

The Fair Work Commission has ordered the managing director of a company - issued three bullying-related WHS improvement notices - not to use his lawyers to communicate with a worker, in a suite of stop-bullying orders that clarify the worker's role and who can discipline her.

Employers are entitled to alter workers' flexible working arrangements to improve their performance, but one manager's hasty attempt to do so was unreasonable, a tribunal has found in an injury dispute.

An employer's decision to make a worker's role redundant was understandable, but it wasn't reasonable and made his injury compensable, a tribunal has ruled.