Batman star, Christian Bale, gave superheroes a bad name when he hit the headlines for verbally assaulting photography director, Shane Hurlbut, on the set of the Terminator. Bale gave Gordon Ramsay a run for his money when he reportedly used the F-word 35 times in just over four minutes.
Film maker, Darren Aronofsky, said that he thought that the star's tirade was "reasonable" and said, "I don't think that he was out of line". Back in the real world Bale's actions would almost always allow an employer to summarily dismiss him (i.e. without notice) fairly on the grounds of gross misconduct. The danger of ignoring such a verbal onslaught or responding more leniently is that this allows employees who commit similar offences further down the line to argue that they have been treated inconsistently, and that previous lenience created a legitimate expectation that such actions would not be punishable by dismissal (and any dismissal is therefore unfair). Obviously, employers need to deal with each case on its individual merits along with any relevant mitigation offered by the employee but should be alive to the above issues.
See XpertHR's Good practice guides on Handling discipline, Conducting disciplinary investigations and Conducting disciplinary interviews [subscription required] for relevant and practical guidance.
| Tweet |
|
| Permalink | Email this |
