Alerting your employee after an incident? Judge: careful investigation is decisive!

Warnings to employees should not be kept in a personnel file for no reason. In this ruling, the subdistrict court ruled that an employer must delete a note from an employee's file. By following the subdistrict court's "orders" regarding issuing warnings, you can avoid this.

The case study

The subdistrict court in Zutphen whistled back an employer who imposed a disciplinary punishment on a lifeguard for speaking to guests in an intimidating manner and in a loud voice. The lifeguard wanted to adjust the bottom of the pool during a lesson. To do that, all guests had to leave the pool and wait for the lifeguard to finish. A bathing guest did not want to cooperate with this. The lifeguard made it clear that this was not allowed for safety reasons, resulting in a provocative reaction from the guest.

The pool site manager then decided to impose a disciplinary sanction, in the form of an official warning, on the lifeguard. The warning was included in the personnel file. About a week later, the warning was converted to an endorsement, as the warning was deemed too severe an action. The endorsement was also included in the file. The lifeguard did not let this stand. 

The decision

The subdistrict court ultimately considered that an employee may oppose the entry of certain information in the personnel file if it is contrary to the obligations of good employment practice. An employer must have such an entry preceded by a careful (factual) investigation. The employer must also give the employee the opportunity to be heard again. In this case, the endorsement was not made with sufficient care. The employer must remove the annotation from the personnel file.

Conclusion

If you wish to place a note or warning in your employee's personnel file, you have an obligation under good employment practice. You must ensure a careful investigation and give your employee an opportunity for a hearing. If you fail to do so, you may not be able to record the warning. An employee who misbehaves more frequently may not be able to be fired at a later date, due to a lack of record.

Do you need guidance and/or advice on how to deal with employee incidents? If so, please be sure to contact us . We will be happy to help you.