What if an Employee lies during a disciplinary investigation?

Posted 30 July 2014 by Mike Johnson Disciplinary, lying, warnings, fair process;

The Court of Appeal has recently addressed this issue because an employee claimed the employer should have dealt with alleged lying as a separate disciplinary matter. The Court disagreed. So if you have an employee who seems to be lying in their defence of a disciplinary matter, you need to:

• Make it clear that it appears to you that the Employee may be lying, and that if so this in itself could be serious misconduct (especially for more senior employees); and
• Give the Employee time to respond to your allegation

What you then need to do is prove on the balance of probabilities that the Employee has indeed been lying. If so, you can then discipline for lying at the same time as for the matter being investigated.

If you need help with a disciplinary process, give us a call.