Today's Workpace

JOSEPH MASANGO | Wednesday July 14, 2010 00:00

It reads 'Dear Comrade,  As I charges you with assalt for dengering our company machines.  When I asses your case I hav to allow you to go away.  This is not your mother's house where you do whatever you want my boy.  Who do you think you are?  Please go away younger man.  Good bye.  You are not a nice boy but your wife eish that one is nice.  Tell her I say hallo'.  

First, his promotion to be our supervisor was definitely through favouritism, as he is old and cannot write proper English.  They overlook guys who have gone to school, preferring 'Yes men'.  Second, are supervisors allowed to greet our wives in company memos?  Some of them look at our wives with love in their admiring and jealous eyes.  Where do I appeal so that my dismissal is reversed? 

Answer:  You should not worry about your supervisor's old age or assume that because he experiences challenges in writing as shown above, it then means that he got his promotion through favouritism, or that he cannot deliver the organisational objectives.  I will return to your enquiry shortly.  At work, it is quite common for some employees to make false accusations about others, particularly their fellow employee or their manager (the more senior the manager is, the juicier the story is made to be). 

Claims often uttered in the presence of others, or reduced to writing and passed on to others, are:   that pretty Ms X is carnally known by every boss she works with, hence she is always promoted; that Mr Y sleeps around with his secretary; that Mr H has acquired a lot of property because he uses a 'headboy' (tokoloshi) to deliver; that their CEO has girlfriends all over Africa; that the CEO's company driver uses juju so that no other employee gets the chance to do this job, etc.    Should they be taken as defamatory matter, which they can easily be, bold allegations as these could easily prove costly to the one responsible for spreading them.   It is therefore smarter for one to mind one's own business or, if genuinely aggrieved about something affecting him/her/them at work and/or of direct or indirect relevance to the organisation, to raise it in the acceptable or established manner, for possible investigations and drawing of accurate conclusions.  

Now then, the greeting also seems immaterial. What you need to focus on is whether the letter was indeed a letter of termination of employment.    Some companies have policy documents which inform managers and subordinates what is expected of them and, in this case, where to appeal.  You may also approach the supervisor's own seniors, for redress.

If still aggrieved, you may approach the Labour Office, timeously though.  Note that appealing or taking a matter to outside parties does not mean that you will necessarily 'win'.  It depends on what is at issue, and how you argue it out. 

In your case however, this particular supervisor's actions certainly need to be tested, to see whether yours, much as it appears to be so, was in fact a letter of termination of employment and, if so, whether this elderly gentleman cleared all the hurdles lined up for substantive and procedural fairness.  You definitely would want to take this one up. 

Companies ought to be careful regarding correspondence that goes out.  It may help if the drafting of standard templates and related correspondence is done centrally for consistency and accuracy of information, and then passed on to the manager/supervisor who is authorised to sign.  It is even smarter to have the company's attorney develop the templates.

Question:  We have a problem of company drivers, even managers for crying out loud, who carry unauthorised passengers (and it always has to be young ladies) each time they go on long distances on company business.   Would it not be taken as a matter of common sense for drivers to know that picking up girls in company vehicles is clearly outside their mandate?

Answer:  To some it may be, but to others it may not.  You may need to develop a policy document to assist you in this regard.  Policies serve a very important role in an organisation. 

That said, it is one thing to develop policy documents.  It is quite another to ensure that these are communicated to, and understood by, the workforce.  If they are neither communicated nor understood, then the purpose of having the policy documents in the first place stands to be defeated.

In one case where the alleged carrying of an unauthorised passenger was at issue, the Court of Appeal held that with the exclusion of certain inadmissible evidence, there was no evidence that carrying the particular passenger as the employee had done was expressly forbidden by the employer. 

This, together with other facts that served in the matter regarding the status and act of the employee, led to their Lordships concluding that the driver had acted within the scope of his employment.  

In developing policy documents, you may want to avoid making the organisational leadership prisoner to 'every twist and turn' of the policy documents unless, for some reason, this is absolutely a must. 

It is submitted that policy documents should strike a balance between governance issues and the need for some reasonable flexibility or discretion on the part of management.  Denying reasonable flexibility or discretion will sooner or later make the risk of policy violation by managers easily turn into reality, or easily trigger other unwanted organisational problems, often to the detriment of the business in one way or another. 

Masango is in the Doctor of Laws (LLD) programme.  He writes fully and completely in his personal capacity.  As such, his views do not represent, in any way whatsoever, those of any institution or organisation/s he may be associated with however and whenever. He can be contacted on Email: jmasangoworkspacesolutions@gmail.com  or outside working hours on cell: (267) 71313730 or land: (267) 2971547.