Unnecessarily aggressive management action will almost certainly result in legal claims

The Federal Court recently (Dorsch v HEAD Oceania Pty Ltd [2024] FCA 162) held that a critical and insensitive manager who routinely swore at his direct reports in a mis-guided attempt to motivate them warranted summary dismissal.

Employees made numerous complaints about the manager’s management style and some even chose to resign rather than remain working for him. The complaints involved the manager:

• routinely swearing and shouting

• placing excessive work demands on them

• regularly banging his fists on the table when dealing with them

• being critical and insensitive to employees personal concerns

• belittling employees that the standard of work was inferior to the needs of the German parent company

Raper J accepted the workplace was one where swearing appeared to be acceptable but said she would not otherwise apply “an angelic standard” to assessing his behaviour.

Our take

No one deserves or should be required to put up with the type of behaviour described above. It is unsafe and can’t be legitimately relied on as providing any type of motivation.

The classic ‘3/4 time old school coaches rev up’ makes great TV – and that is about it. No effective professional manager in 2024 genuinely thinks this stuff works anymore. In the Harvard Business Review, Stanford Professor Bob Sutton said the best business practice he knew of was “the no asshole rule”. He said civilised workplaces are not a naïve dream, they do exist, and bolster performance.

Action items

• don’t put up with toxic employees

• implement effective grievance procedures so that your employees can let you know about bad behaviour before they leave

• train your managers to be more effective

• avoid ‘turning a blind eye’ to bad behaviour – your culture will start to look like the very things you don’t want

Edge Legal

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