A technician of mine who is employed to do field work for customers is refusing to go to a clients site on Tuesday next week because he has has holiday booked the next day (and for a couple of weeks afterwards) and has a 3am flight.

In my mind that's gross misconduct and I'm quite happy to sack him today. He was going to be put on warning next monday anyway, with monthly reviews and verbal/written warnings if he didnt meet his performance targets.

He doesn't have any holiday allowance left so cant take the day as holiday and I'm not inclined to offer him the day as unpaid leave either.

He's also been pissing and moaning about 5-6 hours overtime a MONTH and wanting time off in lieu, where his contract clearly states reasonable overtime is expected and I dont think 5-6 hours a month is particularly unreasonable, especially when his colleagues work 60 hours weeks and dont expect any overtime or time off (they do get given it as it happens, but they actually work hard)

Anyway, does a refusal to work amount to gross misconduct and can I bin him?

Cheers

Dave

All fair comment, but didn't really answer the OP's question.

To which i will add that I don't know the answer but am interested to see if it could technically be gross misconduct. My thoughts are that it should be, but I'm sure it can't be that easy.

Not sure this qualifies as gross misconduct but im not Employment law specialist. If you did sack him and it went to tribunal they could well see you as being a bit harsh.

Has he had any warnings verbal or written before? If not and hes a pain in the arse refusing to do this job is his first, followed by final written warning if he misbehaves again.

I would suggest that both parties try to look for way to solve the issue rather than the employee presenting it as a "my way or the highway" thing.

To the OP - if you've tried to make reasonable adjustments and can't accommodate his request then it's misconduct (not gross misconduct). As such it would probably be a first or final written warning depending on what your Staff Code of Conduct says.

In response to reapercushions...

Really? He's on 40k a year and refusing to do his job?

He is the only person available.

Yes, his performance has been miserable and it's not the first time he's refused to do work, excuses range from "picking my car up from the garage" to to "wifes birthday"

Every time he does this it costs the business money as we lose out on chargeable work. 9 times out of 10 the client will go elsewhere, so the knock on effect from loss of future business is important too.

My mindset / work-ethic would dictate that he should have thought of that before hand and booked a day or 1/2 day holiday on the Tuesday.

He "only" gets 25 days holiday too!!

I've been personally carrying him for 6 months now too, picking up the slack and a 70 hour week is fairly normal and he's refused to take on any of my workload anyway.

This morning he spent about an hour playing the google game with the hurdles man.

So I should give him a "quiet day" in the office because he's off on his hols the following day.

What am I paying him for?

Then you issued him with his first warning when he refused to work the first time? or docked his pay?

Tribunals will ask these questions you can't go straight to gross missconduct unless hes stealing or something equally as serious.

Out of interest him doing this job will mean he finishes work at what time of night?

You sound like a right . It is not unreasonable to get some time back or some unpaid leave.

Problem solved i'd say.

As I understand it we have to set out objectives and targets, then a review, at the review (if it happens) he can be accompanied and we have to essentially tell him he's getting a formal warning. Do this two more times and he can be dismissed.

With regard to the final say, that's entirely mine, with a nod from one of the Directors but they are more pissed off with him than I am and he's making me look bad as a result.

I've had to apologise to the sales team today on behalf of the technical department because of the lack of support they are getting from him.

Personally I'm desperate for him to work out, he's fairly good technically, if a bit of a slow learner, I just need him to up his work-rate and show a bit more commitment to the job! It's well paid, but involved a reasonable amount of travel and a bit of overtime. He gets loads of training and the opportunity to get involved in interesting work and projects. It's a good role, and one a lot of techies bogged down in boring day-to-day in-house support would jump at!

I should also add, that all this has happened whilst I'm supposed to be on holiday this week, yet I worked on a clients site Monday (12 hour day, not including 3 hours driving) and I've worked yesterday and today too.. Typically sorting out st he should be dealing with!!

I hope you can understand the frustration!

Ok, sack him then.