The dismissal of an employee during probation must be justified by proven misconduct; insufficient training and adaptation time can negate claims of gross misconduct.

AWARD

Andersen Ong Wai Leong:

Reference

[1] This is a reference from the Director General for Industrial Relations to the Industrial Court of Malaysia under s 20(3) of the Industrial Relations Act 1967 as amended by the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2020 (A 1615) ("the IRA 1967"), in respect of the dismissal of ERIC FOONG CHEE SOON ("the Claimant") by his employer, HITACHI DIGITAL HOST SDN BHD ("the Company") on 18 June 2021.

B. Facts

[2] The Company is a subsidiary of Hitachi eBworx ("HeB"), a consulting and technology solutions company focusing on delivering high performance solutions to the banking and insurance industry.

[3] The Company was awarded a project by CIMB Bank Berhad ("CIMB Bank"), known as CIMB Novus Project ("NGC Project") to develop a retail banking mobile application for CIMB Bank. The NGC Project was to be jointly developed by the Company and CIMB Bank.

[4] By an Offer of Employment dated 7 May 2021 ("the Employment Contract"), the Claimant commenced employment with the Company as a Senior Application Engineer (Organization Level E2) with effect from 24 May 2021.

[5] The Claimant's role and responsibilities as Senior Application Engineer as stipulated in the Employment Contract include, but not limited to the followings:

(a) Participate in requirement, design, implementation, testing and support of custom banking solutions, which include features enhancements, new functionalities, and back-end systems integration;

(b) Collaboration with customers to prepare technical specifications;

(c) Interact with subject matter experts (functional & technical) to understand business requirements and technology architecture of the applications accordingly;

(d) Assist in infrastructure & system software setup for development and testing environments; and

(e) Ensure timely completion of tasks delegated.

[6] The Claimant was assigned to the Company's CIMB Novus Project Team in charge of the NGC Project. His role under the NGC Project was known as Microservices Developer whereby he was responsible to build product iteratively, create and run automated test scripts for testing.

[7] Shortly thereafter, the Company received feedback and/or complaints regarding the Claimant's work and attitude from both the CIMB Novus Project Team and CIMB Bank.

[8] In light of the aforesaid complaints, the Company then issued a show cause letter to the Claimant dated 16 June 2021 ("the Show Cause Letter"), outlining the charges against him and requiring his response by no later than 18 June 2021. The charges levelled against the Claimant are as follows:

Charge 1:

That you had on 3 June 2021, late to attend the 9.00am NGC Squad Malaysia Daily Stand-Up Meeting via Ms Team without valid reasons despite reminders and with full knowledge that it is a compulsory meeting.

Charge 2:

That you had since 2 June 2021 failed to update JIRA status by clock in your Time Tracking for the stories listed below (task target completion date was on 11 June 2021) despite numerous reminders by your Technical Manager, Tommy Tan.

i. CCNG-2712

ii. CCNG-2408

iii. CCNG-2409

iv. CCNG-2410

v. CCNG-2590

vi. CCNG-2591

vii. CCNG-2592

viii. CCNG-2593

ix. CCNG-1074

Charge 3:

That you had failed to complete the tasks assigned to you within the time frame as stipulated in the below table:

Charge 4:

That you had failed to follow coding standards set for NGC project throughout the duration of the task assigned despite instructions from Technical Lead, Hendra Putra Wahyudi.

Charge 5:

That you had on 15 June 2021 during Sync up for 8i integration Meeting via Ms Team challenged your Technical Lead, Hendra Putra Wahyudi, on your merge code submitted despite several explanation given to you.

Charge 6:

That you had not been co-operative towards our customer (CIMB Bank) during daily stand-up meeting which resulted the below complaint lodged by them against you on 3 June 2021 and 15 June 2021. Subsequently this led to a request from them to remove you immediately from this NGC project.

i. You were late to attend stan