Employers must record sales correctly where commission is involved.

The Employment Court recently upheld a decision made by the Employment Relations Authority to support the Employee’s claim that his right to commission from sales made was greater than the Employer claimed at the time the Employee was made redundant.

 

The Employee argued that he was to receive commission when his entire sales team reached a target over 50%. The Employer disputed this and claimed the Employee was only entitled to commission when he was reaching the 50% target himself. The Employer supported this claim by arguing that the Employee did not hold a supervisor role and was therefore not entitled to claim commission from the team’s sales. This claim was contradicted as a lot of the Employee’s obligations were to oversee the team’s sales.

 The evidence given by the Employer was contradicted several times, this shows the necessity for employers to keep well recorded sales spreadsheets where commission is involved. The other key issue for Employers to note is the need to have an Employment Agreement updated if an Employee’s role changes, in this case the dispute was centred around what the Employee’s role actually was. These issues can be avoided when necessary preventative steps are taken by the Employer.

Alan Knowsley

Employment Lawyer Wellington

Employee compensated after being dismissed by text …

An early childcare teacher was dismissed by text message after she was told by her employer that she could not leave work early. The employee had inappropriately raised her voice when disciplining children and had become unduly offended when she was confronted by her employer about the matter.

The Employment Relations Authority upheld the employee’s personal grievance claim for unjustified dismissal.

The ERA held that the employer failed to act as a fair and reasonable employer could have in the circumstances by not undertaking a fair and proper disciplinary process.

The ERA declined to award an amount for lost wages as the employee received a sickness benefit following her dismissal, and her loss of income was more likely due to her ill health and inability to work rather than her unjustified dismissal.

The ERA awarded the employee $3,000 compensation for humiliation and injury to feelings but reduced the award to $1,800 as the ERA considered that the employee bore 40% of the responsibility for what had occurred.

Alan Knowsley

Employment Lawyer Wellington