Disciplinary Hearings in various sectors

If you are an HR manager a CEO or a Director in a medium to large size company, you have most likely have had to deal with disciplinary enquiries or hearings and grievances. These words at your level are not words that are uncommon or strange to you.

As top management you are most likely aware that these hearings can be tricky at best and that there are many procedures that needs to be followed when conducting a disciplinary hearing or when dealing with a grievance hearing. In most scenarios it is normally best to just outsource these procedures to avoid accusations of being biased or unfair in a disciplinary hearing or risking an outcome that is not necessarily a fair one.

A lot of companies often feel that it is better to insource the disciplinary function however this poses many potential problems such as:-

• If you are using an employee like an HR Manager to chair your hearings it can happen that the HR Manager does not feel that the employee is guilty or that there is not enough evidence to dismiss that employee. The decision can be due to fear of reverse discipline and wanting to please management because “that’s what the boss wants”.

• The employee may go to the CCMA and if the employee is successful, it can cost your company a lot more than the cost of hiring an independent chairperson.

The further problem that arises out of insourcing a chairperson for your disciplinary hearings and grievances is that there are often inter personal relationships that develop in the workplace resulting in favouritism or even the opposite such as discrimination and resentment. Due to the fact that we spend the majority of daily hours at the office factory or laboratory we interact with the people we work with and as a result, relationships good or bad are bound to develop.

A common problem in the corporate environment is the fabrication of or destruction of evidence for fear of losing one’s job. It is not uncommon for an employee that is not directly implicated in an offence, but is required to provide evidence in a disciplinary hearing to, to hide evidence to prevent them from being implicated. This can come in many shapes and sizes such as office chatter, deleting of emails and destruction of documents.

With an independent chairperson from Savage Rowley Attorneys, no such influence can occur and the outcomes and conducting of your hearings will always be procedurally fair and done without fear or favour. This can be done on a retainer basis which allows for easier budgeting of costs for your disciplinary hearings and grievance hearings or it can be done on a case by case basis.

All the various industries and sectors have different requirements and all operate differently. Labour law unfortunately is not as pliable and applies across the board regardless of what sector you operate in. We will apply the relevant labour law in a suitable manner to your business. Should we find that there are certain aspects within your workplace that needs attention or which may appear to be unfair we will be able to point these out to you thereby ensuring that your company is compliant and up to date with the latest labour law developments. Should a health and safety inspector or the Department of Labour decide to inspect your company, the result for not being labour or safety compliant can be potentially crippling for any business not mention a compliance order against you company can be chaotic and disruptive with having to draft new contracts, policies and implement costly safety measures in a short space of time. Our services can form a twofold check and balance for your business.