INCOMPATIBILITY: How to deal with the proverbial fly in the workplace ointment

Dealing with incompatibility in the workplace can be tricky. Employees have to “fit in” with their fellow employees and try to get along with them as best they can. This needs some effort, adaptation and good social skills. But sometimes it’s simply impossible. A personality clash, a bully in the midst, an obnoxious individual or someone with no “EQ” can seriously disrupt harmony and productivity.

The court has established the following useful guidelines on how to deal with these incompatibility situations

• Incompatibility is defined as the “…inability of the part of an employee to work in harmony either within the “corporate culture” of the business or with fellow employees”.[1]
• The employer can insist on reasonably harmonious interpersonal relationships with its business;
• It is an implied term of employment that an employee must not act in a way which causes disharmony and breakdowns in working relationships;
• An employer can dismiss an employee for incompatibility on the grounds of incapacity;
• Incompatibility occurs when an individual’s conduct causes workplace relationships to break down irretrievably
• Assessing incompatibility involves a degree of subjective judgement – but there must at least be some other evidence to substantiate it other than the employer’s opinion
• A court will not interfere with the employer’s decision to dismiss an employee for incompatibility if it has acted reasonably, in good faith – and if there is some other evidence to support the employer’s assessment.
• The employer must take some “…sensible, practical and genuine efforts to effect an improvement in interpersonal relations when dealing with a manager whose work is otherwise perfectly satisfactory”
• The incompatibility must be wholly attributable to the employee and the breakdown in the relationship must be irredeemable.
• Dismissal must be a last resort.

TIP: It will be apparent that an employer should use good judgement when dealing with these cases. This can be especially difficult when conflict and tensions are running high – and the employee concerned refuses to acknowledge that he or she is the problem. Employers could consider taking good advice from an objective legal expert to deal effectively with these problems.