Yvonne Sorensen recently wrote a column for Friends in Business on
bullying the boss
A new trend is emerging in employment law: bullying the boss. Employees make life so difficult for their employer that the employer is ultimately relieved to part ways through a settlement agreement. In most of these cases, the employee already has another job lined up, and walks away with a nice severance bonus on top.
Over the past three days, I have heard the following from various clients:
- The employee sends the employer an email full of complaints and insults about the employer, their family members and colleagues, and presents an ultimatum: “either you raise my salary, or you let me go with a payout”.
- The employee regularly fails to show up for work and sends messages such as: “my cat is sick”, “my housemate has COVID”, “my phone wasn’t working so I couldn’t be reached”, “my alarm didn’t go off”, and so on.
- At their own request, the employee has a short working day (in hours) with no break, but goes outside three times a day for long smoking breaks. When their supervisor raises this, the employee blows smoke in the supervisor’s face and says they couldn’t care less what the supervisor thinks.
- The employee regularly shouts at their supervisor and colleagues at work, and insults colleagues.
- The employee refuses to follow instructions from a female supervisor.
- The employee refuses reintegration activities for months, claiming they are unsuitable or too far away, or that they are unable to move their hands, stand, bend, and so on. This “sick” employee later turned out to have already been working elsewhere for four months, five and a half days a week (!).
- The employee repeatedly threatens to leave and puts on their coat whenever they don’t immediately get their way, even when there is a lot of work and clients are directly affected as a result.
- The employee demands two weeks of unpaid leave immediately after a three-week holiday. The employer cannot accommodate this because the schedule won’t work, causing it to lose clients as a result.
Refusing to work, showing disrespect, and souring the atmosphere in the workplace rarely amount to grounds for summary dismissal on their own. Carrying out prohibited side activities while refusing to comply with reintegration obligations, however, is seriously culpable and can justify summary dismissal.
We also consistently see employees who are confronted about their conduct then reporting sick.
However uncomfortable it may feel: every instance of disruptive conduct should be confirmed to the employee by email or WhatsApp, so there is a record of it. Don’t wait to start building a file, even if, as an employer, you don’t want to spoil the atmosphere.
A rotten apple has to be removed from the basket, to protect the good ones too.
Would you like to know more about being bullied as an employer? Please contact one of Sørensen Advocaten’s employment lawyers. Call: +31 (0)10-2492444
