TruckSafe Tips

Each month we answer a question that relates to Chain of Responsibility.

The question for this month is:

Question:

I have one employee who continues to fail to perform according to our CoR mandated practices and sometimes commits actual breaches. We pull them up whenever this occurs, and issue them with an informal or formal warning. But finding employees is hard and I don’t want to dismiss them in case l can’t find a suitable replacement. As long as I continue to issue warnings, am l protected?

Answer:

Your CoR risk management practices must effectively produce a safe outcome. Merely issuing a warning doesn’t necessarily satisfy your duty. Continually issuing warnings to the same person for the same or similar problems is not producing a safe outcome – it is dragging out continued unsafe practices, for which you are ultimately responsible.

If an employee responds to warnings and their performance improves, even if they have a later relapse, that might be a different situation. But frequent repeated problem performance is most likely going to be relied on by the regulators as evidence that you are failing to manage known non-performance. While it is a very hard decision, if an employee isn’t learning their lesson, letting them go may be the safest and best outcome for your business.

The information contained in this article is of a general nature and does not constitute legal advice.

Credit: CoR Advisor, Portner Press

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