Even in situations where an employee admits their guilt when faced with a charge of gross misconduct, an investigation may still be necessary to avoid claims of unfair dismissal, as a recent Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) case has shown.

In the case of Compass Group v Okoro, Ms Okoro had been employed as an assistant catering manager. When the company was presented with an iPod Nano as a corporate gift, Ms Okoro asked her line manager if she could take it home. Her request was declined, but Ms Okoro later took the device anyway.

When her line manager inquired about the iPod, Ms Okoro would only say that she knew where it was and that she knew who took it. Two weeks later, she admitted that she had taken the gift as a joke and returned it unused and unopened.

As a result of this, Ms Okoro was suspended on full pay, and an investigatory meeting was planned but later cancelled. She was then invited to a disciplinary meeting where she was summarily dismissed on the grounds that her taking of the iPod was an act of gross misconduct.

The EAT found that, although there will be some cases in which employee admits misconduct where no further investigation would be needed, in most cases an investigation should be carried out to ascertain if there are any mitigating factors and to determine the seriousness of the misconduct itself.

In this case, Ms Okoro had defended her actions by explaining that she and her line managers had a working relationship which included pranks and jokes. Taking the iPod was one such joke, albeit perhaps a misjudged one.

Had the employer performed an investigation into the incident and the circumstances surrounding it, the nature of this working relationship would have been revealed, and her behaviour would have been seen in its proper context. By not carrying out the investigation, the employer was at fault and so the dismissal was unfair.

Technorati Tags: Disciplinary Investigation, Gross Misconduct, Unfair Dismissal