Incompatibility in the workplace

EDN_Reporter

3 months ago

By Nhlanhla Dlamini

Incompatibility in the workplace can be defined as the inability on the part of an employee to work harmoniously with fellow workers or managers or the employee does not fit with the corporate culture.

We have those employees in our workplaces and we secretly want to get rid of them. But, our Labour laws only allow for termination of employment for certain circumstances. These include misconduct, incapacity and operational requirements.

Misconduct warrants termination of employment as per the wrongful actions of the employee, after having been subjected to a formal disciplinary enquiry. Incapacity and/or poor work performance may also warrant termination of employment.

However, such termination is not necessarily due to the fault of the employee. In the case of incapacity due to ill health, the employer must be seen to have done what is possible to salvage the situation. Ill health is a natural phenomenon that one does not wish upon himself.

If it unfortunately befalls an employee and affects his ability to execute his duties, there are certain measures that an employer may utilize to mitigate the counter-productivity.

That may include transferring that employee into a department where fewer physical activities are required and assigning duties that do not have the risk of deteriorating that employee’s already compromised health.

However, if all such measures prove to be futile and the employee still exhibits signs of incapacity to carry out his duties, the employer is not obliged to retain such an employee. The employee’s contract of employment may be terminated after he has been subjected to a formal hearing in this regard.

Then there is incapacity due to poor work performance. An employer needs to deal with such incapacity professionally. This is because there is a very thin line between poor work performance and negligence.

Negligence does not fall under this category but it is considered to be a form of misconduct; wherefore it should be dealt with differently. Also, poor work performance may sometimes be mistaken for dereliction of duty. This is also another form of misconduct which should be dealt with as per the workplace’s disciplinary procedures.

If the incapacity is solely due to the employee’s poor work performance, before the employer may terminate that employee’s contract of employment; he should prove that he has done enough to improve that employee’s ability to do his work. Such measures include coaching, counselling and if possible, rotating that employee in the workplace’s departments to ascertain where that employee is best suited.

Having done all that within a specific period without yielding any positive results, the employer is then justified to conduct a hearing and terminate that employee’s contract of employment due to poor work performance.
The third ground for terminating an employee’s contract of employment is due to operational requirements.

We often refer to such as retrenchment or redundancy. This is also not due to any fault of the employee. It may be occasioned by advancements in technology, changes in the economic landscape and organizational restructuring to name a few factors.

There are laid down procedures to deal with this ground and termination of employment is eventually effected as per provisions of the Employment Act, 1980 and the Industrial Relations Act.

When these grounds were identified and measures were put in place to deal with them, there is one ground that was unfortunately neglected and that is ‘incompatibility’. Most Human Resources Management practitioners have dealt with such a situation either directly or indirectly.

It is a common cause that employees come from diverse backgrounds and upbringings. Some employees find it impossible to divorce themselves from their backgrounds and upbringing towards their attitude to blend with the corporation’s culture. This may be a result of many factors and in most circumstances, such employees are actually very good in their work performance.

However, the employee finds it or deliberately makes it difficult to work harmoniously with his co-workers. Although this employee may be very good in his delivery as an individual, his failure to harmoniously work with other employees becomes counter-productive and affects the workplace as a whole. His attitude in the workplace, more often than not, directly affects the productivity of those he has to work with.

This is a challenge that most organizations face but since there are no measures that are in place to deal with this situation, these organizations are often left stranded with employees of this calibre.

Some jurisdictions have identified this as a ground for termination of employment and they have devised strategies to first deal with this issue before resorting to dismissal. These may include counselling, coaching on interaction skills, and changing that employee into departments he or she would be most suited to; among other measures.

The workplace is not supposed to be a hostile environment.

The Industrial Relations Act and the Code of Good Practice were incorporated to ensure fair labour practices and harmony within the workplace. By the same token, I believe that an employee who exhibits signs of incompatibility in the workplace should be dealt with accordingly in a rehabilitative manner.

The first step towards attaining this goal is to identify incompatibility as a cancer in industrial harmony. Having done that, it should be incorporated as part of the grounds for fair termination of employment; should the employee fail to respond to the rehabilitative process.

Most workplaces have become very hostile environments because they are harbouring employees of this calibre. One incompatible employee can cultivate a culture of incompatibility among others. This then leads to the failure of the organization to work as a team but as individuals who are there to do their part and get paid at the end of the month.

Should that start happening, one can be assured that that is the beginning of the end in productivity. Incompatibility in the workplace is real and if our goal is to cultivate and maintain the spirit of industrial harmony, then it is one of the cancers that have to be rooted out.

This, however, has to be done in a corrective and rehabilitative manner. If at all an employee has proved to be resistant to such rehabilitation then his employment should be fairly terminated. “If you can’t change the man, change the man!”.