Dismissal due to Attitude or Personality

p>The recent case of Ezsias v Glamorgan NHS Trust has seen the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) investigate the issue of whether the breakdown of a working relationship involving a senior consultant should be properly dealt with through a disciplinary procedure.

Given the fact that the disciplinary procedure is intended to deal with behaviour that people have control over, the case poses a very interesting question.

In the case, the personality of the consultant in question made him very difficult to work with. His employer decided that this was not an issue which could be tackled by their disciplinary procedure, as it was his underlying character that was causing the problem and not a specific incident or incidents.

The EAT agreed with this decision, determining that it would have been futile to discipline the consultant for traits of character and attitude, and that the correct way to deal with the problem would...