Canadian Employment Law Today - sample

Grocery store employee fired for theft, reinstated with 4-month suspension Cashier giving free case of pop to customer without authorization was serious misconduct, but her intentions weren't dishonest: Arbitrator BY JEFFREY R. SMITH A n Alberta grocery store worker who was fired for not follow- ing instructions and giving away product without authorization has been reinstated by an arbitrator with a lengthy suspension on her record. e 59-year-old employee, referred to as KW in the hearing, was a cashier at a gro - cery store run by Calgary Co-operative As- sociation. She was hired in 2008 as a full- time cashier and remained in a full-time position as the store increased the number of part-time and casual employees. e worker suffered from epilepsy, chronic pain, hearing and memory deficits, and depression, but her ailments didn't af - fect her job performance — she was the recipient of multiple awards for exemplary service and compliments on her level of service and customer attention, and had no discipline on her record. However, KW's concern with customer service sometimes went too far, in the opin - ion of some at the store. KW prided herself on her devotion to Co-op customers, but the manager of the store received some complaints that she took too long serving customers because of her attention to de - tail and tendency to chat — though he also received many compliments about her. e manager felt that sometimes KW overdid things, especially when customers were in a hurry, and she needed to find a balance be - tween meeting customer needs and meet- ing the business needs of the Co-op store. e issues regarding KW's attention to customers were increased by her tendency to accept coupons that were expired or for other stores. In these cases, she would use generic transaction codes to circumvent the system and process the transactions. Man - agement spoke to her about mishandling coupons, but KW said supervisors and managers were inconsistent with their di- rections — some accepted expired coupons, while others told her not to, she claimed. If there was any confusion, she said she would call a supervisor, as per company policy. However, many in management considered KW difficult to supervise because of her tendency to verbally agree to instructions but do things her own way if she thought it was best for customer service. On one occasion in early January 2017, KW tried to page a supervisor regarding a customer who was trying to use two expired coupons totalling $30 on a purchase of more than $500. No one responded, but an off- duty supervisor told her "she could probably take them." She entered the code but her till crashed, leading to two managers to come by and complete the order while KW was sent to another till. e manager on duty was con - cerned she had tried to process expired cou- pons, but didn't follow up with the supervisor who she had said had authorized the cou- pons. Afterwards, KW called the manager to apologize and offered to reimburse Co-op for the value of the expired coupons. Confusion over sale price Two weeks later, KW was working in the afternoon at the Co-op store. A cus- tomer wanted to purchase two cases of store-branded pop called Citrus Wave. After KW scanned the cases, the cus- tomer noticed the charge was $3.99 per case, though the store was having a sale on most of the store-branded pop for $2.99 per case. e customer said that a store supervisor had told her the previ- ous week that the pop would be on sale, so KW asked a clerk for a price check and paged a supervisor. While the clerk checked the price, KW took out a sheet of yellow paper which was used for refunds or free product — under a voluntary code of practice in the Canadian retail indus- try, if the scanned price of an item with- out a price on it scans higher than the displayed price, the customer is entitled to receive the item for free or $10 off if the price is more than $10. e fairness in pricing policy was also included in Co- op's policy manual. e clerk confirmed that particular fla- vour of pop wasn't on sale, though all the other flavours were. e supervisor on duty arrived and confirmed that Citrus Wave wasn't on sale, but in the interests of keeping the customer happy over the confusion from another supervisor having erroneously told her it was on sale, instructed KW to charge the sale price of $2.99 each for the two cases. e supervisor returned to her office and checked the transaction on the computer, noticing that KW had only rung in one of the cases. She returned to the till and asked KW about it, and KW said the customer was the grandmother of another Co-op employee "and she should get one free." e supervisor said she didn't care who the customer was, she wasn't supposed to get a free case of pop. e supervisor reported the incident to the manager and, after some inquiry, KW was put on an administrative suspension while Co-op investigated. KW was inter - viewed about the incident, and she said she believed the price fairness policy applied, since the price coming up on the scanner wasn't what the customer had been told the previous week. She said some supervisors and managers encouraged staff to do "what - ever it takes" to make customers happy and make a sale, and she felt it was an appropri- ate action to take — it was the store's error. KW also said she didn't recall being told to scan the two cases of pop at the sale price instead of giving one for free, and "if she's said she said that, I apologize, I did not hear that." She mentioned her medical issues such as hearing problems and neurological issues, as well as the fact that her father had died the previous month, but felt blindsided by the meeting as she hadn't been informed of it in advance — something that was re - quired in the collective agreement for disci- plinary and security investigative meetings. 4 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2018 CASE IN POINT: WRONGFUL DISMISSAL EMPLOYEE THEFT is a serious form of misconduct that often is just cause for dismissal. However, the employee's intent goes a long way towards determining how serious it is. Good intentions, even if misguided, can save an employee's job. BACKGROUND

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