‘Slow’ employee was immediately dismissed, now he sees severance pay doubled | Domestic
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He took two to three months longer to complete tasks than colleagues and did half of his work or only did it when he was asked to do it again. An employee of a software company in The Hague drove his employer to such despair that he was summarily dismissed. But that turned out to be unjustified. On appeal, it even leads to a doubling of his severance pay and a cost of more than 26,500 euros for the company.
The 40-year-old man has been employed by Wedel Software since the summer of 2022, a company that focuses on developing software for the broadcasting, media and entertainment industries, among others. He will sign a one-year contract upon arrival, but will not make it to the company until the summer of 2023. Before New Year’s Eve, an email arrives in his inbox demanding his ‘urgent attention’.
“It has now happened for the third time that a lead (a potential customer, ed.) who registers on the site is not followed up or not followed up adequately,” the angry boss said. The man, who carries out his work entirely from home, would also hardly complete or follow up on other tasks.
His manager further writes that ‘a number of things’ have meant that confidence in the collaboration has fallen to a low point. ‘I cannot assume that the simplest tasks assigned to you will actually be carried out.’ The email ends with a final warning, otherwise Wedel will interpret this as a refusal to work and will immediately terminate the working relationship.
The ‘ummpteenth time’
Two months later, on February 10 last year, Wedel has had enough and the company sees no other option. ‘Today it has happened for the umpteenth time that an assignment assigned to you is not or hardly carried out, that you do not communicate about it and simply do nothing else.’ He can pack his things that same day. The reason: refusal to work.
The man believes his sudden departure is unjustified and challenges the dismissal in the subdistrict court. He states that he has never actually refused to do anything and that he has never been offered an improvement program. The employee is demanding around 25,000 euros for the – in his view – unjustified termination, the damage suffered and unused holiday hours.
Wedel, on the other hand, believes that the employee has been warned often enough about his ‘unwilling attitude’. The unexecuted orders piled up and as a result the company saw no other way out than summary dismissal, according to the defense.
Failure to perform tasks or to perform them on time cannot in itself lead to the conclusion that there is an urgent reason for summary dismissal
Subdistrict court judge
The subdistrict court judge previously ruled that the dismissal was not legally valid. “Failure to perform tasks or not to perform them on time cannot in itself lead to the conclusion that there is an urgent reason for immediate dismissal,” the judgment read. There was no explicit refusal. According to the subdistrict court judge, Wedel should have made more effort in the context of good employment practices to get the man to the desired level of performance.
Severance pay twice as high: why?
For the so-called fair compensation, the amount paid in the event of an incorrect dismissal, the subdistrict court judge arrived at approximately 7,500 euros, the court of appeal set the amount at double: almost 15,000 euros. The difference between these is because the subdistrict court judge deducted two types of compensation that the man already received from the amount. This involved two compensations for the employer’s failure to adhere to the one-month notice period and the standard compensation for losing a job.
The court now says: Wedel has acted seriously culpably by immediately dismissing the man and therefore he should also receive – without deduction – his full salary for his remaining contract (from February 10 to June 1), especially given the circumstances that he will experience ‘some hindrance’ in finding a new job due to the case.
The bottom line is that the dismissed man in his forties will emerge as the winner of the appeal and will receive 15,000 euros, according to the ruling published on Thursday. The total costs of the case on appeal for the software company even amount to more than 26,500 euros.
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