{"id":470,"date":"2016-01-28T22:11:24","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T22:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/workplaceculturematters.com.au\/?p=470"},"modified":"2016-01-28T22:22:54","modified_gmt":"2016-01-28T22:22:54","slug":"swearing-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/?p=470","title":{"rendered":"Swearing at Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Monday I had the pleasure of speaking to Ross Greenwood on his program &#8216;Money News&#8217; on 2GB. \u00a0He was discussing the recent Unfair Dismissal case of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fwc.gov.au\/documents\/decisionssigned\/html\/2016FWC145.htm\">Horner v Kallis Bros<\/a>\u00a0in the Fair Work Commission. \u00a0The employee was dismissed for swearing at his supervisor. \u00a0The disimissal was ruled to be not unfair, because despite the fact that there was a cultlure of swearing at the workplace, this employee had been previously warned for swearing and abusive conduct.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0UgnWGsTRJw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The main thing I advise employers and employees in this area, is not to focus on the words themselves. \u00a0Words are only part of a the wider conduct.<\/p>\n<p>In some instances, the occasional swear word may be perfectly acceptable in the workplace. \u00a0 When dealing with a paper jam or a crashing computer for example, frustrations lead to the odd inappropriate word. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0On the other hand, abusive conduct (like that displayed by Mr Horner) is never appropriate, whether or not swear words are used.<\/p>\n<p>Context is everything. In some workplaces, such as schools or childcare centres, \u00a0a strict zero tolerance approach is necessary. \u00a0In others, such as commercial kitchens and building sites, swearing is often a normal part of workplace communnication.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/workn.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/censored.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/workn.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/censored-300x214.png\" alt=\"censored\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-475\" srcset=\"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/censored-300x214.png 300w, https:\/\/workn.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/censored.png 590w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>If a employer is worried, there are two important rules:<\/p>\n<p>1. Judge the overall conduct in context, not just the words used, when assessing an incident involving employee conduct.<\/p>\n<p>2. Make \u00a0your expecations very clear from the outset. \u00a0The best way to do this is through a workplace policy. \u00a0But be realistic with those expecations. \u00a0There is no point creating a zero tolerance policy if it is \u00a0either more than necessary, or not realistically going to be followed.<\/p>\n<p>The nature of the workplace will often define this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Monday I had the pleasure of speaking to Ross Greenwood on his program &#8216;Money News&#8217; on 2GB. \u00a0He was discussing the recent Unfair Dismissal case of Horner v Kallis Bros\u00a0in the Fair Work Commission. \u00a0The employee was dismissed for swearing at his supervisor. \u00a0The disimissal was ruled to be not unfair, because despite the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions\/477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}