Originally Posted by
Pontius
I'm with A Squared on this one. If the article is accurate then the company have given him ample opportunity to return to work. He's done it once before and it didn't work out. Why should another attempt be any different? What should an employer bend over backwards twice to try and accommodate someone who isn't suited to the job? They don't HAVE to give him a job if he's not capable of carrying it out and if I were Flybe I wouldn't be wasting time and resources on someone who is almost certainly going to repeat his behaviour in XX months and be useless to me, as an employer.
Also, why should Flybe have to consider alternative employment? He was hired as a pilot, not ops personnel (or whatever), so he either does that job or applies for any other like someone else would have to.
I know I'm not all touchy-feely, valuing and inclusive of all needs but if he can't do the job of a pilot then best he goes and looks for a job that he can do.
The point the tribunal is making isn't that the individual wasn't capable, it was that Flybe didn't follow its own HR procedures. Had they have done, the tribunal agrees that it is most likely the individual could have been fairly dismissed on capability grounds. It is very common in the tribunal system that they find against a respondent purely on the basis they didn't follow process rather than disagree with the outcome.