Halliwells’ Kerstie Skeaping on what John Terry’s affair tells us about the workplace

JOHN TERRY’S affair with a former team mate’s girlfriend has made national headlines and called into question his fitness to captain the national side.

Many will feel that his conduct is entirely unacceptable for someone in a position of such responsibility. Yet if Terry was a senior manager in any other line of work, what treatment could he expect?

Any employee with more than a year’s service has protection against unfair dismissal. If the business was considering dismissal, it would first have to establish fair grounds.

Misconduct could be a fair reason. But as most businesses don’t stipulate an affair with a colleague’s partner is misconduct, sacking on that ground may lead to an unfair dismissal claim.

But the affair might have an impact on the manager’s ability to carry out his job.

In these types of circumstances, emotions among workplace colleagues will run high and they may show their solidarity with the cuckolded colleague by refusing to continue to work with the manager.

In these circumstances, if conciliation does not resolve the problem, the manager may find himself on the transfer list to another department or dismissed on the potentially fair ground referred to legally as “some other substantial reason”.