An employer is entitled to ensure that his employees work in a harmonious working environment.

Incompatibility relates to an employee’s inability to maintain a cordial and harmonious relationship with his/her colleagues or owners of the business. It results in an irretrievable breakdown in the employment relationship, caused by the employee.

The employer has a duty to engage with the employee to ascertain the reasons for the incompatibility, properly counsel the employee and warn the employee that if he/she fails to rectify the disharmonious conduct, it may lead to his /her termination of services.

The employee must be given an opportunity to rectify the disharmony with the aim to restoring an amicable working relationship.

It’s the employer’s duty to make genuine efforts to improve the employee’s incompatibility and discuss possible remedial actions to remove the cause of the disharmony.

Having adhered to the above, if the employee continues to fail to rectify the disharmonious working relationship, the employer can issue the employee with a notice to attend an incompatibility hearing and call for the employee’s dismissal preceding the conclusion of the incompatibility hearing.

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