Can You Fire an Employee for Lost Trust? Exploring the Risks of Immediate Termination

Can a regular employee be terminated due to a lack or loss of trust and confidence? What will be the implications to the company if the employee is terminated immediately without due process?

Understanding Loss of Trust in the Workplace

Employers lose the trust and confidence of employees due to their misconduct. Therefore, what constitutes misconduct? You need to establish the cause of the loss of trust. Loss of trust cannot occur based on the whims and fancies of the employers.

It is better to conduct a proper domestic inquiry. Let the facts come out and then make a decision. Please remember that employers must use their authority judiciously. It is not to be wielded against juniors to establish supremacy. Otherwise, there could be negative repercussions.

Loss of trust can happen either way. What if you lose your employees? Will they come up with innovative ideas? Will they give their best? Before you remove them, what if they start quitting on their own? Will you be able to measure the cost of this degraded organization's culture?

Leadership's primary responsibility is to create a healthy culture in the company and not to vitiate it. What to do or how to do it, the choice is yours!

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Mutual Trust and Confidence in Employment

Mutual trust and confidence are the invisible common threads that keep the employer and employee associated for any length of time. However, it is always hard to prove who lost the trust and confidence, whether it was the employee or the employer. There is no hard and fast yardstick to measure the trust and confidence of any party. Therefore, even if a departmental or domestic inquiry is held, with the upper hand being of the employer, the employee can only be adjudged to have lost the trust and confidence of the employer. Even if due formalities are observed, nothing can be substantiated justifiably in that respect.

Implications of Immediate Termination Without Due Process

Your query seems to be half-baked, particularly with reference to the terms, "if the employee terminates immediately without due process." Assuming that the company has not adopted the due process of termination, as may have been prescribed in the terms and conditions of employment notified through the offer letter or appointment letter, regarding implications, I can say that except for the liability of the company to compensate the employee with the notice period pay, no other liability would rest on the company. However, if the termination letter does not specify the reason for the loss of trust and confidence, the company can be made liable to pay gratuity as well, if it becomes due as per the law.

Regards

An employer cannot wake up one day and say, "I have lost trust in Employee X." There must be a reason or reasons for such a loss of trust. What has the employee done or been accused of doing that caused the employer to lose trust and confidence? Without full details, no one can provide any guidance. To receive actionable suggestions, be more descriptive of the events.

Thank you, everyone, for the thoughts you shared.

Scenario Overview

Here is the scenario: Employee X's reporting is inconsistent with what we expected to see. We believe that X did not validate or review all possible information or figures before submitting the final report to us. As a result, instead of being able to make decisions on corrective actions or moving forward with satisfactory results, the employer has to spend a lot of time checking each detail of X's reports to ensure accuracy and acceptability.

Many thanks.

Regards,
Sam

Mr. Sam,

Your description is not clear regarding what was prescribed and what was not done by the employee. The question of trust and confidence arises when employees act secretively against the policies and interests of the organization, rather than when the employer has to spend a lot of time checking routine outputs in the discharge of their duties and responsibilities. Inefficiency of an employee, if noticed, and loss of trust and confidence are two entirely different issues.

If reports submitted are wrong or inflated, etc., call the employee and show him where he is putting wrong or incorrect data. In such a situation, management may get a feeling that the work is not up to par and cannot be relied upon. The employee should either be retrained or kept under supervision. If there is no improvement after due documentation of failures, relieving the employee should be considered.

Sir,

It's just as simple as this: due to repeated wrong reporting over about a year, the employer wanted to terminate (Manager - Employee X) instantly.

It's just as simple as that; due to repeated wrong reporting over about a year, the employer wanted to terminate (Manager - Employee X) instantly.

Further Questions

My further question to you will be: Did management point out that the figures are incorrect and give him a clear chance to improve? What was the reason for the wrong figures being quoted—lack of knowledge and/or a casual attitude? Was wrong information being given to Manager X by subordinates or other departments? Termination is always easy if you follow procedure, but it would be enlightening to know the reasons for the failure of the manager. Is the failure an individual problem or a system failure in collating correct information? This is vital for improvement.

Dear Sam,

Repeated wrong reporting should be preceded by at least two warnings to the employee to make them aware of their faults or to allow them to defend their position if they are treated as having lost trust and confidence. The employee can also be subjected to disciplinary action if they willfully make such mistakes.

It may be easy to terminate them on any ground other than loss of trust and confidence, but if they approach a court of law, the management may not be able to prove the loss of trust if they have not already been adequately warned for their misdeeds. In that case, if the court orders their reinstatement in service, the management can always feel let down by its own employee.