Can i swear at work

Rulings from the Fair Work Commission FWC have time and time again found that the act of swearing on its own is not a valid reason for dismissal based on conduct. The FWC will take into account a range of factors when determining if the dismissal was valid including, the nature of the workplace environment, whether a culture of swearing is present, if the language was used in a targeted, threatening or aggressive nature, and the context of the swearing. The environment in which the swearing occurs is an important consideration in whether it is inappropriate or not.

Some industries are prone to stressful situations such as mining sites, Fly-In-Fly-Out worksites, and even an office building in the middle of the CBD. However, locations such as child-care facilities and client-facing businesses will often have much stricter rules when it comes to swearing at work. The workplace culture is the environment of your workplace as it goes about its day to day activities; — What is generally accepted as the norm and what would be considered out of the ordinary.

The Fair Work Commission will consider:. However, this does not mean that these situations automatically allow for immediate dismissal. The FWC will still take into account all other factors when determining if a dismissal was justified, as in many cases, lighter disciplinary action could have been more appropriate.

Recent rulings by the FWC have found that swearing between employee and manager when occurring in a private situation such as a phone call, generally do not justify grounds for dismissal. However, if swearing in the workplace could undermine the authority of a manager or another employee, then the swearing may have gone too far.

Swearing that is used as an adjective, an exclamation, or in the instance of accidental injury will often be considered acceptable behaviour given other factors. It might be easy to jump to the conclusion that every instance of profanity in your workplace needs to be policed. But research shows that this can have a negative impact on how committed your employees are to working towards your organisational vision.

Australians work best when they are given the freedom to get the job done, and constant policing can actually demotivate some employees. So, when should you as an employer intervene in cases of swearing in the workplace? Breach of a Swearing Policy or the Code of Conduct — If your business has a company manual with a swearing policy that is being used as the benchmark for organisational behaviour; You should act upon employees who swear at work.

If the Swearing is one of the Grounds for Dismissal — You should also take action in instances of swearing when taking into account the nature of the workplace environment, whether a culture of swearing is present, if the language was used in a targeted, threatening or aggressive nature, and the context of the swearing.

Unless there are significant contributing factors for swearing at work, immediate dismissal will often be seen as unjust by the FWC. Depending on the severity of the case it is always best to work through the situation between employee and employer, and if necessary a neutral third party which can be in-house or an HR Consultant.

By talking through the situation with the employee, you may find they might of just been having a bad day and are actually more apologetic than you realise.

In more serious situations, formal company procedures should be followed, which can include a written apology, mediation with a third party, and recommendations for improvement. Using common language — swear words and all — can help someone slide more seamlessly into a social community. Swearing can also provide a clue into your character — although maybe not in the way that you instinctively think. Perhaps bucking popular belief, research suggests swearing can make you seem more trustworthy or intelligent.

One multi-national study showed that people who use profanity are considered to be less deceptive and to have more integrity. Swearing, whatever its potential benefits, is still a breach of the code of politeness, and some people can break those rules more readily than others.

Women operate under a separate standard. Research shows swearing can be more offensive depending on the identity of the swearer. One study showed that when a woman and a man used the same dirty word, the woman was considered six times more obscene. Here we are in , and we still have a double standard. In another story, researchers asked black and white people to use the same swear words, and found that black speakers are perceived as being more offensive when using non-ethnic profanities.

The executives who have historically made the rules — most of them white men — are the same people who can break them with little consequence. For everyone else, the stakes are higher. Although the commonly held rules about swearing in the workplace seem fairly ingrained and immutable, times have rapidly changed, says Jay, as words that were once obscure and rarely heard now litter movies, television shows and social media. The young generation is growing up in a different language environment, and the sensibilities will be different.

A public tirade of profanity aimed at specific people is almost always unacceptable, whether in politics or elsewhere, experts said. John F.

Kelly, Trump's new chief of staff, fired Scaramucci after the latter, in his conversation with The New Yorker reporter, used crude and profane language to describe members of the president's staff, including Reince Priebus, Kelly's predecessor, and Stephen K.

Bannon, chief White House strategist. This wasn't a case of constructive criticism. That said, there are instances when profanity has a place at work, said Yehuda Baruch, professor of management studies and research director at the Southampton Business School at the University of Southampton in the U.

For example, certain swear words can generate a sense of team culture and close connection. For one of Baruch and Jenkins' studies, Jenkins gathered data by working as a temporary staffer in a British mail-order operation that employed 14 workers equally divided between office and warehouse environments.

They also used six focus groups—four in the southern United States and two in England—of full- and part-time workers. Students accounted for most of the 10 to 20 people in each focus group. Most swearing the researchers studied was reported by workers at the lower end of the organizational hierarchy and occurred in staff areas or after customers had left; it did not occur in front of or within close proximity to customers. Challenger agreed: "Typically speaking, using profane language in front of customers or clients, especially with whom a solid relationship has yet to be built, is considered unacceptable and unprofessional.

Younger managers and professionals were more tolerant about employees cursing, while executives swore less frequently, Baruch and Jenkins discovered. Gender may be an issue; we found that women use more profanity when it is an all-female environment but will be less inclined to do so in mixed-gender teams.

Finally, the researchers found that swearing can be a valuable release valve in high-stress workplaces. However, abusive and offensive swearing should be eliminated where it generates—not relieves—stress, they emphasized.

Repeatedly swearing, making threats and engaging in verbal abuse "can lead to depression, stress, reduced morale, absenteeism, retention problems [and] reduced productivity [and can] damage the image of the organization," they wrote. Challenger said most HR departments can address cursing simply by including language in their policies about respecting co-workers. Rather than write official policies about profanity, he said, "it's most likely better and more efficient to take issues of crass language on a case-by-case basis.

But casual swearing that does not have any adverse impact on business conditions, co-worker relations, or customer or client care is probably not cause for HR intervention. Was this article useful?