Question
One of our employees used vulgar and abusive language towards a supervisor in the workplace while communicating with the supervisor. Is this grounds for immediate termination of employment?
The answer
The employer may exceptionally terminate the employment relationship without notice, e.g. if the employee has seriously violated work discipline. Whether the conditions for a serious breach of work discipline are fulfilled in the individual case must be comprehensively assessed after evaluating all circumstances of the individual case (taking into account the person of the employee, the position held by him/her, the degree of fault, the manner of the breach of work discipline, but also the time and the situation in which the breach of work discipline took place). The assessment and evaluation of the above grounds (which are, moreover, not exhaustive) must always be made on a case-by-case basis and therefore cannot be based on a generalisation. Not every vulgar behaviour of an employee at the workplace constitutes a serious breach of work discipline.