Employee sacked for texting a sickness absence
27 November, 2007 – 9:18 pm by Abi HanifA recent Scottish case now sends a warning to all employers to ensure that they consistently enforce sickness policies and procedures . In short, the employers in this case [Tile it All] sacked an employee [Morrison] for sending a text message to inform his employers that he would be off sick after he had attended his brother’s funeral. This contradicted his employer’s sickness reporting policy, but his superiors did not warn him about this on his return. A few days later, Morrison again sent his employers a text message stating he was sick, and did so for 5 subsequent days. When Morrison finally returned to work he was disciplined and sacked for breaching sickness reporting procedures.
Morrison sued for unfair dismissal, and the Tribunal upheld his claim on the grounds that his employer had not consistently applied the sickness policy, but more importantly that the employers had not informed Morrison that he could not report his sickness by means of a text message.
I was suprised to read this case, as I have advised all my clients since the dawn of text messaging that they must include in their sickness policy an express clause which states that they must not under any circumstances report absences by text message. And this equally applies to email. The integral point in this case is that the employers were inconsistent in their approach; they allowed Morrison to text the first time and did nothing to rectify the breach and subsequently they decided they would enforce the policy. The short answer is: make sure you apply your policies consistently (and if you haven’t, then do not dismiss).
