The FWC has expressed "surprise" at the HR practices of a major courier company that dismissed a depot manager who was partially responsible for a breach of a worldwide embargo on a new JK Rowling book and was the subject of unfounded bullying allegations. XL Express Pty Ltd dismissed the long-serving depot manager for serious misconduct in November last year during a meeting at which its HR manager told him that by delivering a consignment of embargoed JK Rowling books a day early his team cost the company dearly and damaged its reputation. At the meeting the HR manager also put bullying allegations to him for the first time, telling him that Workplace Health and Safety Queensland had conducted an investigation and concluded that he was a bully. She also accused him of wrongly telling the authority that he had not personally received training in the company's anti-bullying policy and procedures. The depot manager, who refused an offer to allow him to resign rather than be dismissed, told the FWC that XL did not pay him his accrued long service leave entitlements because his employment was terminated for misconduct. In finding the depot manager's dismissal unfair and ordering XL to compensate him $48,400 in wages and $6,560 in superannuation contributions, Deputy President Ingrid Asbury said yesterday that XL's manner of dismissing him was "surprising" given the resources at its disposal. While she accepted that the depot manager engaged in misconduct because he was responsible for the embargoed delivery, Deputy President Asbury said he was not solely at fault and this did not provide a valid reason for dismissal after a 24-year unblemished work tenure. Of the bullying allegations, the results of which were not tendered in evidence nor provided in writing by WHS Queensland to XL, the deputy president said the manner with which they were put to him resulted in a "total denial of procedural fairness". Finding he was not given an opportunity to respond to the reasons for his dismissal, Deputy President Asbury said he was instead "called into a meeting and presented with the fact that he was to be dismissed as a fait accompli". "Even on [the HR manager's] evidence of the meeting, the allegations were presented to [the depot manager] on the basis that they were substantiated and that a decision had already been made that [he] was a bully and was responsible for the early delivery of embargoed freight," she continued. "I can only wonder about how WHSQ could have conducted a proper investigation of serious allegations against [the depot manager] without even putting those allegations to him, much less informing him that he was the subject of an investigation," Deputy President Asbury said. Noting the obligation to afford procedural fairness to the depot manager was a "fundamental principle" underpinning unfair dismissal provisions, she said this could not be abrogated by "simply accepting a verbal report from a WHSQ inspector to the effect that he was a bully, without any evidence upon which that report was based". Deputy President Asbury said these unfounded allegations also "tainted" the reasons for his dismissal "so that, on balance, there was no valid reason" for it and nor did she accept that it was reasonable to dismiss him for telling the inspector that he had not received bullying training. Finding he "simply told the truth about this matter", Deputy President Asbury said that the HR manager telling him previously about the company's bullying policy "does not necessarily equip him and does not constitute formal training". Steven Biffin v XL Express Pty Ltd T/A XL Express [2017] FWC 3702 (18 July 2017)