Third Party Pressure On Employers?

Most employers like to think that the employees they have are the best employees on the market for the particular position they hold with the business and the decision to hire and fire is their decision alone. To an extent, that is true, but  what if a  customer or a third party working with your business refuses to deal with a particular employee and your business if that employee remains in post. What can you do about it?

Losing your best customer could be a serious problem if they refuse to deal or work with one of your employees and insist they are removed. If you are a contractor and only have one customer it could be catastrophic!  Accordingly, that employee could ultimately be fairly dismissed on the grounds of  “some other substantial reason”, providing a fair dismissal procedure is followed.

Essentially a business would be expected to consider what other work the employee could do for them- if the business only has one or two customers, this could be difficult to arrange. The Business will also need to consider the injustice to the employee. Dismissing an employee who has long service over one complaint may not be justifiable whereas it might be easy to show justification for a new employee who receives a serious complaint. Essentially all options should be considered before taking the decision to dismiss, including seeking to negotiate with the offending third party .

Neil Coombes, Consultant solicitor at  Waring and Co Solicitors commented: “This is a difficult area for most employers. Often the employee will be highly valued and may not have done anything wrong. Usually, it can be something as trivial as a misunderstanding between the employee and the customer of the business which then can have serious financial implications for the business. The business does really need to consider the situation as a balancing exercise – the risk to the business as against the injustice to the employee. All aspects of the situation need to be fully explored and clearly the whole procedure needs to be adequately documented before any decision is taken”

To speak to Neil, please call 01204 550165 or e-mailneil.coombes@waring.co.uk