At some point an employer may face a situation whereby there is a personality clash between employees. For example, some employees may openly criticise management decisions or have a negative attitude which could affect team morale. It is important that an employer manages these situations carefully.

In limited circumstances, an employer can dismiss an employee on the ground of some other substantial reason (“SOSR”). Tribunals have held that personality clashes or irreconcilable differences can amount to a SOSR for dismissal. However, these differences will need to be serious enough to warrant dismissal and the conflict would generally need to be causing substantial disruption to the business, therefore the situations tend to be very fact specific.

The Tribunal will normally have an expectation that the employer will have undertaken reasonable steps to resolve the differences before resorting to dismissal. For example, (a) referring the matter for mediation, (b) altering shift and working patterns or (c) perhaps redeploying workers. In the Employment Appeal Tribunal (GB) it was held it may be reasonable to expect an employer to do more to repair the relationship where it is to blame and where the relationship breakdown is due to the employer's conduct - this is likely to be a highly relevant factor in determining the reasonableness of the dismissal.

It is essential that the employer shows that the differences were irremediable and the relationship had broken down as a consequence. It is important to note that it is not merely the presence of a difficult personality which is sufficient for a SOSR dismissal, but rather the consequences of the difficult personality on the employer’s business or workforce.

This article was provided by Madison Bowyer, an Associate in the Employment Law Group at Arthur Cox NI. 

T:+44 28 9026 5886 
E: Madison.bowyer@arthurcox.com 
https://www.arthurcox.com/