The Fair Work Commission has ruled the dismissal of an employee not unfair for groping a bartender while staying at a hotel which was paid for by his employer.
The employer regularly used the hotel for work and the employee had been warned after he had caused damage to a hotel room that any further misconduct which brought the company into disrepute would likely lead to dismissal.
Note, the employee was only in the bar as he was attending a training course due to his current employment with the company.
Critically, while the employee was not at his normal work location, he was still required to behave in a way which was consistent with the conditions of his employment.
Lesson: We are seeing increasingly more cases where behaviour outside the normal workplace is being deemed to be part of the workplace (subject of course to the particular circumstances). Making employee’s very clear on the standards of behaviour expected of them is even more important now than ever before so you as a company don’t suffer any reputational risk as a result of their inappropriate behaviour.