In the above case an employee who had been employed by Chep SA as a Senior Human Resources Business Partner had requested permission from her manager not to attend the company’s Achiever Awards ceremony which was held in Cape Town. The reason cited by the employee for the above request was that she was unwell and as well as she was emotionally distraught due to her colleague being suspended due to alleged misconduct of fraud. The employee was granted permission to do so.
On the morning of the 06 July 2017, the above employee had flown back to Durban during company time and when she landed, she had went to chair a disciplinary hearing at another company called Zala Corporates. The employee had issued an outcome of the disciplinary hearing referring to herself as the Director of that company, however it had been later found that the employee was not a director nor employee of Zala Corporates.
The employee had been charged with the following offences :
“Charge 1: Gross Negligence relating to the recruitment process of Mr Malepe (this charge is not directly relevant to this appeal).
Charge 2: Dishonesty, in that she told her manager that she was unwell to avoid the Achievers Awards, while having pre-booked her return flight, demonstrating that she never intended to attend.
Charge 3: Gross Misconduct for failing to inform CHEP that she was ‘acting as a Director’ of Zala Corporates, in breach of the BramblesCode of Conduct, which prohibits conflicts of interest, including outside employment[i],” and subsequently dismissed by the chairperson.
The employee referred the matter to the CCMA and the Commissioner found that the employee was guilty not on any charges mentioned above but a fourth charge which the employee was not charged for and that had emanated from the evidence of the arbitration and the following was stated in the case:
“Commissioner identified what she termed an ‘unexpressed fourth allegation’ that emerged from the evidence. She formulated this as the appellant being guilty of misconduct that destroyed the employment relationship when, during normal business hours and after being given permission to miss the event in Cape Town due to her not feeling well, she chaired a disciplinary hearing for another business concern and in the finding described herself as a director of that concern[ii].”
The Commissioner awarded an amount of two months to the employee for procedural flaws in the case and ruled that the employee’s dismissal was substantively fair.
The matter had been taken to Labour Court by the employee, and the decision of the Commissioner had been upheld and same had been upheld at the Labour Appeal Court.
The judge in the Labour Appeal Court case had stated the following:
“On the question of sanction, the Commissioner and the court a quo were correct. The appellant held a senior and sensitive position in the HR department, a function where the incumbent is a custodian of company policy, ethics, and trust. Her conduct of using company time under the guise of illness to perform work for a third party, while holding herself out as a director of that entity, demonstrated a profound lack of judgment and integrity. This is precisely the kind of conduct that irreparably damages the trust relationship. As held in Autozone v Dispute Resolution Centre of Motor Industry and Others[6] that:
‘where the offence in question reveals a stratagem of dishonesty or deceit, it can be accepted that the employer probably will lose trust in the employee.[iii]’”
From the above my interpretation of the case is that there is a higher onus of duty and responsibility on employees employed in higher positions of authority in a company and a duty of good faith and trust is owed to the employer by the employee and failure to do so may result in dismissal. The cornerstone of any employment relationship is based on the trust relationship between employer and employee and once the trust relationship is broken irrevocably this depicts the beginning of the end in terms of the employment relationship.
[i] Machi and Chep SA (Pty) Ltd and Others (DA22/2023) [2026] ZALAC 3 (19 January 2026)
[ii] Machi and Chep SA (Pty) Ltd and Others (DA22/2023) [2026] ZALAC 3 (19 January 2026)
[iii] Machi and Chep SA (Pty) Ltd and Others (DA22/2023) [2026] ZALAC 3 (19 January 2026)
