You realise your Employee has engaged in serious misconduct. How do you handle this difficult situation in a way to minimise disruption to your team as a whole? Refer to this Guide: Terminating an Employee for Serious Misconduct on what constitutes serious misconduct and how you can approach this situation.

Serious misconduct by an Employee includes actions that:

• Causes serious or imminent risk to the health and safety of another person, or the reputation or profits of the Employer’s business, or
• Willfully or deliberately behaves in a way that is inconsistent with the contract of employment.

Examples of serious misconduct include theft, fraud, assault, being intoxicated at work, and refusing to carry out lawful and reasonable instructions that are part of the Employee’s contract.

Under the National Employment Standards, a contract of employment may be terminated without notice when an Employee has committed serious misconduct.