Employment lawyers explain difference between disagreement and disobeying orders — and importance of progressive discipline
A worker in Spain may have thought she was proving her commitment by showing up to work up to 40 minutes before her shift every day. Instead, she was fired – and a court backed the employer.
The real problem wasn’t the worker’s seeming eagerness to come to work — it was her repeated refusal to follow instructions not to do so, despite receiving several warnings over a period of two years. A Spanish court sided with the employer in the case — as reported by Spanish media and garnering attention on social media — finding the worker was guilty of insubordination.
For employment lawyers Natasha Atyeo and Stephen Torscher, the ruling is more about how employers define, communicate, and enforce expectations around work.
Atyeo — who’s an associate at Grosman Gale Fletcher Hopkins LLP in Toronto — cautions that not every clash with an employee, or even a flat “no” in the moment, should be treated as insubordination.
“People are allowed to disagree at work and they're allowed to have productive group discussions about what should happen and what shouldn't happen,” she says.
Atyeo adds that employees should be allowed to push back a little for purposes of honesty and productivity, and employees should feel free to do that. “I think employers should encourage that kind of behaviour and, in most cases, they do,” she...
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