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Stop hanging up... or start packing up
A telephone worker sacked for disconnecting callers challenges her employer's decision to dismiss her.
Every now and then someone in the public eye makes such an extraordinarily obvious mistake that their only option is to go quietly, hoping that the media's attention will somehow escape them. Readers may, for example, remember the sad demise of Gary Hart at the hands of the good ship "Monkey Business" - or any number of celebrities and politicians whose picture has appeared in British tabloid newspapers beneath the headline "Gotcha".
If a recent decision of the Employment Relations Authority is anything to go by, employees who are caught in similar situations of obvious guilt do not seem to share the desire for going quietly. Whether it is because of the comparative anonymity of employment proceedings - or because of optimistic faith in the ability for the employment law to rescue even the most obvious miscreant - it seems that there are employees who will readily bring a personal grievance to try their luck.
The employee in Corbett v Urgent Couriers Limited (Unreported, Employment Relations Authority, Auckland, 25 May 2001) worked as a telephonist for a courier company. Her job was to take instructions from customers and to ensure that packages were picked up and delivered with the appropriate amount of efficiency that her employer's name suggested. Ms Corbett was not the company's only operator: in an apparent attempt to ensure efficiency, the company employed seven other operators in the same role.
In September 2000 the company introduced a new telephone system. Amongst other things, it provided an operator with the ability to terminate an incoming call by pressing a "disconnect" button. The system appeared to be hampered by some serious flaws: a number of customers complained that upon dialling the company's telephone number their call would, after a couple of rings, be cut off. The company decided that it would ask its telephone services provider to investigate the telephone system to identify any technical faults. That investigation established that the problem was, in fact, "user error": it revealed that there had been over 1300 calls of less than two seconds duration - and that 1148 of these had been to Ms Corbett's extension.
A subsequent observation of Ms Corbett at work revealed the company's worst fear: over a period of 20 minutes she was observed disconnecting four separate calls by pressing the "disconnect" button. Her motivation for doing so appeared to be related to the emails that she was occupied in sending, and the internet sites that she was busy surfing. Subsequent observations confirmed this pattern of behaviour.
The company addressed the matter by conducting an inquiry. It provided Ms Corbett with details of the allegations that were made about her conduct and gave her an opportunity to attend a meeting (with a support person) to provide her explanations. She was, however, unable to provide her employer with any acceptable explanation to account for her conduct.
To the outside observer, the position in this case might seem rather obvious: Ms Corbett was employed to answer incoming telephone calls for a company whose entire business was built upon an ability to respond efficiently to orders received by telephone. She had, by her actions, adopted a practice which was completely contrary both to the purpose of her job, and to her employer's interests. In the face of such overwhelming evidence about her behaviour, how could she challenge the decision to dismiss her?
Ms Corbett thought of a number of arguments. Amongst other things, she said that the company had pre-determined its opinion about her, that her misconduct had in fact been the company's own fault by its failure to train her properly, that other employees who had been guilty of similar transgressions had not been treated so harshly and (somewhat remarkably) her rather regular habit of disconnecting calls would not, in fact, constitute serious misconduct.
The Authority did not find favour in any of Ms Corbett's arguments. It found that the company had carried out a fair investigation and that her conduct was capable of being construed as serious misconduct. Ms Corbett's challenge to her employer's decision was dismissed.
Employers may perhaps take two messages from this decision.
First, in any disciplinary process, there is a real need for employers to ensure that fair procedure is followed - and is also well documented. If this case is anything to go by, employees may not shrink from subjecting even a case of obvious misconduct to pedantic scrutiny.
Secondly, the real problem in this case was perhaps not related to the employee's penchant for disconnecting calls - but rather to her apparent passion for sending emails and visiting internet sites. Although it had not been revealed to the employer at the time of its inquiry, the content of Ms Corbett's email communications was described by the Authority as "somewhat salacious". In this case, it may have been that appropriate monitoring of the volume and content of email traffic and internet usage would have allowed the employer to intervene before the existence of Ms Corbett's problem was brought to its attention as a result of complaints made by customers about poor service.
