PR director sacked for covert meeting recording

Days after being told that her employment would be terminated, JJT was hit with a formal misconduct warning detailing several lapses during her notice period.

Company leadership cited her unauthorised contact with a client, reaching out to a colleague on his day off, and attending a business meeting where she forgot her own team member’s name.

On March 3, JJT attended a meeting with the firm’s president and chief human resources officer.

During the meeting, JJT provided an explanation for her lapses and recorded the conversation using her phone.

As JJT was showing the firm’s president a WhatsApp message she had sent to her colleague about her employment termination, the president noticed on the screen that JJT’s phone was recording.

JJT subsequently deleted the recording and left her phone outside the room. The meeting ended shortly after.

The firm’s president later sent JJT an e-mail regarding the unauthorised recording of the meeting and said the company needed time to review the implications of her actions.

JJT was asked to pause all work while the firm conducted an internal review and to give a written explanation of what happened, including whether it was the first time she had recorded any internal discussions without consent.

On March 6, JJT was handed an immediate termination letter stating that recording an internal company meeting without consent constituted misconduct and a fundamental breach of the trust and confidence expected of employees.

The claimant argued her dismissal was wrongful because she placed her phone on the table to openly record the meeting solely as a note-taking aid to prepare an accurate written response, and had immediately deleted it upon request.

She also maintained that no confidential client information, financial figures or other business information had been discussed during the meeting.

She contended that the firm had used the recording incident as grounds to deprive her of the salary she would have earned through the end of her notice period on May 22.

The firm said that the director was not an ordinary rank-and-file employee, and added that if a senior leader covertly recorded her own management, every conversation thereafter would come into doubt.

It said that her dismissal was justified as a covert recording of an internal company meeting, without the knowledge or consent of the participants, was in itself a fundamental breach of the trust and confidence required in the employment relationship.

It added that as the most senior member of her business unit, JJT was held to the highest standard of professional judgment, and her contract had identified a breach of its confidentiality provisions as cause for termination without notice.

Destroy trust

Chan said the meeting was convened to discuss business matters of the firm, adding that it was irrelevant that at the point when JJT’s recording was noticed, only matters relating to her lapses had been discussed.

With the recording deleted, Chan said she could not determine its true purpose, and questioned why a recording was even necessary when JJT was already reading from prepared notes.

She added: “I do not consider the (firm’s) explanation of the effect of (JJT’s) act on the employer-employee relationship to be an overstatement: some acts of an employee are themselves sufficient to destroy the trust and confidence in an employment relationship regardless of what the employee’s intentions may have been, and even if the employee’s intentions have not been established to be malicious.”

She said that in the context of JJT’s employment with the firm, this was the case.

“The very act of (JJT) covertly recording the meeting was sufficient to destroy the trust and confidence in this employment relationship,” said Chan.

“To be clear, none of the above is to say that an employer will always be justified in taking the view that covert recordings made by an employee amount to misconduct that warrants summary dismissal.

“Each case will turn on its own facts, and the balance of factors may lead to a different outcome in different circumstances,” she added.