The Enforcement of Mandatory Workplace Policies Which Are Not Included in the Contract of Employment

Abstract

The Research Report attempts to contribute to the existing legal framework by providing practical guidelines and solutions for employers on how to enforce mandatory workplace policies that are not included in the employment contract, in a manner that will mitigate non-compliance or challenges to the policy. It is common practice that employers develop and implement mandatory workplace policies mostly to regulate and guide the conduct of employees under the circumstances where such policies apply. Sometimes, mandatory policies are challenged by employees who refuse to comply for various reasons. The issue is that there is no legislative precedent to guide employers with uniform authority on whether a mandatory policy can be implemented and how it should be enforced. Equally, there is no legislative precedent on how to mitigate or resolve problems and challenges of non-compliance to mandatory policy. The Research Report uses a literature review in attempting to guide employers by providing an analysis of the procedural steps to be followed when implementing and enforcing a policy, the rights and obligations of parties to comply with a mandatory policy once enforced, the legal position relating to such a policy and, the consequences of non-compliance. The Research Report concludes that employers can implement and enforce mandatory policies under the current legal framework and, once a workplace policy is enforced, that policy is elevated to the same level as an agreement or contract, therefore, any conduct of non-compliance with such a workplace policy is misconduct and unlawful.