How much can you discipline insubordinate employees?
HR practitioners complain frequently about ‘insubordinate’ and ‘disrespectful’ employees. However, a lot of the time, they use these terms incorrectly. So because true insubordination goes to the heart of the employment contract, practitioners, management and employees must understand a number of concepts.
What is insubordination?
The Collins Concise Dictionary defines ‘insubordinate’ as “not submissive to authority, disobedient or rebellious”. If an employee is insubordinate, he refuses to bow to the authority that his superior reasonably exercises. This could include if the employee:
- Refuses or intentionally fails to obey reasonable and lawful instructions,
- Makes comments such as: “You have no authority over me”, and
- Tells his manager to go and get something from someone else.
What is the difference between insubordination and disrespect?
Insubordination applies upwards and can only be committed by a junior towards a senior employee.
Disrespect, however, can apply upwards and downwards. For example:
- It would be disrespectful for a manager to shout at an employee and tell her to “get out of my office”.
Disrespect is not necessarily linked to a person’s position of authority or a disciplinable offence but can also be linked to a person’s human dignity.
How does insubordination relate to the employment contract?
In my view, every employee is – because of the nature of the employment relationship - bound to carry out the employer’s reasonable instructions. A reasonable refusal to do so could therefore be a breach of the spirit of the employment contract.
When is a charge of insubordination not appropriate?
Sometimes conduct appears to be insubordination but is something else. For example:
- At a disciplinary hearing, the shop steward representing the accused might tell the manager chairing the hearing - in a hostile manner - that “the employee does not accept his dismissal and that the manager is biased”.
- This might be disrespectful and may merit the shop steward being disciplined by the union. However, the steward shouldn’t be charged with insubordination because he isn’t acting in his capacity as an employee.
Also, an employee might not carry out an instruction because:
- The equipment used is faulty,
- The employee doesn’t have the skill required, or
- The employee is disabled.
Remember that the examples above don’t amount to insubordination because the employee isn’t refusing to carry out the instruction.
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Ivan Israelstam is the Chief Executive Officer of Labour Law Management Consulting. He is known as a leading practitioner in labour law and pragmatic labour relations management with many years experience in corporate human resources management. He has an honours degree from The University of the Witwatersrand and an IPM diploma in Personnel Management and in Training. Contact Ivan: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . |
