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Apologising
[ch 7: page 53]Where appropriate, apologising quickly, acknowledging an error, cooperating and indicating a willingness to learn from mistakes can help avoid a dismissal. An apology should be taken into account by the employer when considering sanctions, including when deciding whether dismissal is within the “band of reasonable responses” (see Chapter 9: Possible arguments to use in mitigation).
An apology can be used by the employer to justify treating one worker differently from another, where the offence was the same. For example:
An Apple employee was investigated for posting online describing his Iphone as his ”Jesusphone”. He was uncooperative throughout the investigation, answering “No comment” to all the questions, and he failed to apologise. During the investigation, he drew the investigator’s attention to two other employees who had also posted derogatory comments online about Apple. These were investigated and both employees owned up to the misconduct and apologised. The claimant was summarily dismissed, but his two co-workers got final warnings. The dismissal was ruled to be fair even though the co-workers kept their jobs, largely because of his failure to cooperate during the investigation or apologise.
Crisp v Apple Retail (UK) Limited Bury St Edmonds ET Case No. 1500258/2011