Poor performance + bad attitude = no $
Bob worked as a Project Manager for a communications company. His primary responsibilities were meeting timelines and staying on budget. He had to communicate with stakeholders and customers efficiently. While Bob had been with the company for 8 years, the last year of his employment was in this new position and things did not go well. Bob kept working on side projects his supervisor told him to ignore and as a result many of his projects were behind schedule. Mistakes were made with respect to dates and the construction people were given less time than agreed and planned to complete projects. Before long Bob was told that his career was in jeopardy as a result of these areas of concern. While the other Project Manager had a 100% completion rate and more projects, Bob was only achieving 71%. Three more written warnings were provided over a 5 month period and then a final warning and 2 day suspension. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the fact that Bob changed the price on a quote without telling anyone else on his team.
Bob was terminated and filed an unjust dismissal complaint under the Canada Labour Code which governed his employment. The employer’s witnesses said throughout their evidence that Bob lacked a positive attitude and it was always Bob’s way or no way. They said he was negative, confrontational and that only his ideas were important. It appears that Bob sunk himself when he took the stand. Almost all the problems were somebody else’s fault. He claimed he was over worked even though the other Project Manager was carrying a bigger load than him. He claimed that others had failed to do their jobs and that the company’s expectations were unreasonable given the staffing levels. The employer’s allegations about Bob’s attitude were proven to the adjudicator by Bob himself when he gave evidence. Bob lost his case and it was found that there was just cause for his termination. The progressive discipline process was thorough and fair.
The reality is that what likely really sunk Bob was his attitudinal challenges. My experience is that if Bob had listened to feedback, not blamed others for his deficiencies and humbly tried to improve, he would likely never have ended up in this unjust dismissal hearing in the first place. Adjudicators and judges are hesitant to find just cause for the termination of a long term employee and award them no pay in lieu of notice except in the most glaring of circumstances. I strongly suspect that Bob’s defensiveness and conviction that he could do almost no wrong cleared the adjudicator’s conscience enough to deny Bob’s claim. Progressive discipline matters in establishing just cause but an employee with a bad attitude helps.
