Ⅰ. Individual Behaviors

1. Insincere work attitude such as absence without notice, etc.

Negligence in the rules of employment refers to poor work performance, insincere attendance, arriving late, leaving early, avoiding duty, etc. However, such cases of job negligence is behavior commonly displayed by many employees in providing labor service. Therefore, they may be subject to a wage reduction or personnel evaluation, but they are not liable for disciplinary punishment.
Nevertheless, negligence of duty can induce disciplinary punishment in such cases where the employee is negligent without permission, or the employee’s behavior disrupts company order regardless of whether he/she reported the cause in advance, or where the employee repeats the same mistakes after warnings from the company.
Poor work attitude indicates behavior that degrades work efficiency or reduces productivity due to a failure to concentrate on duty. Absences without permission, work negligence, or frequently arriving late to work can be a reason to evaluate work attitude. Repeated poor work attitude cannot naturally be cause for disciplinary action, unless the employee ignores or does not abide by warnings given by the company.

1) In the event the company regulates, for example in its rules of employment, insincere work attitude by stipulating its right to take disciplinary dismissal action “when absences without notice exceed a certain number of days in a month,” such stipulations shall not be null and void, even if it violates the Labor Standards Act. Accordingly, if an employee is repeatedly absent from work without notice, the company has justifiable reason to take disciplinary dismissal actions against him.

2) In the rules of employment, if the company stipulates that exceeding a certain number of absences without notice as a justifiable reason for taking disciplinary dismissal action, it does not indicate the total number of absences without notice without limit to a certain period of time. But it should be interpreted that there is a limit to an employee’s total number of ‘absent days without notice’ within a given recognized fixed period.

2. Poor performance (poor sales performance)

In every company there are employees who perform very well, and those who perform poorly. Companies pay incentives to good workers, while they take action with poor employees to ensure better performance in the future. In some instances, companies may dismiss poorly-performing employees, but such action must meet standards in labor law designed to protect employees. Generally, disciplinary dismissal requires justifiable ① reasons for dismissal, ② level of severity, and ③ adherence to disciplinary procedures. Justification for dismissing under-performing employees should be determined not only by considering the criteria required for normal disciplinary dismissal, but also occupational characteristics related to poor sales performance by the particular employee. In order to dismiss employees with poor sales records, a company needs to maintain a detailed checklist to verify that it has provided sufficient opportunities for improvement to these employees and that the poor sales have been ongoing for a long period of time(refer to Table 1).




3. Disregard for rules

Failure to yield to company discipline signifies that the employee is disturbing the company’s order, violating working rules with unacceptable behavior, violating dress code, etc., which are matters concerning the freedom of private life. Disruption of company order disrupts team work in the company, thereby disturbing peace and order through behavior that brings negative influences into the company.
In general, company order is regulated in the rules of employment. Even if there is no specified regulation therein, the employee shall have an additional duty bound by the labor contract, which is to not disturb the company’s group activities.

4. Violation of obligation to protect business secrets
The employee has an additional duty from the labor contract that obliges him/her to preserve transactional secrets obtained during labor service and not to disclose company secrets to a third party or abuse that confidentiality.

5. Use of company facilities without permission
A company’s right to facility management is the right to use materials originating from ownership. An employer, as owner of the property, has a right to manage the facilities for his/her own purposes. If an employee uses the company’s facilities without permission, renders them useless, or interferes with their operation, he/she may be liable for disciplinary punishment for violating the employer’s right to facility management.


6. Interference with business
It is recognized as an interference of duty when an employee interferes with the employer’s business without a justifiable reason, obstructs other employees’ execution of duty, distorts information, or obstructs operations. One may be sentenced to a maximum of five years’ imprisonment or be fined up to 15 million won under Article 314 of the Criminal Act.

7. Embezzlement, misappropriation and bribery
An employee’s embezzlement or misappropriation of company funds is detrimental to the company. Accordingly, the employee is subject to disciplinary punishment if he/she is in a position requiring financial trust and commits related crimes or misappropriates company property by taking advantage of a proxy right on the business, regardless of the amount considered.
If bribes degrade the company’s reputation and dignity of the workers, and damage the company’s honor and trustworthiness, then disciplinary action may be taken.

8. Theft or running away with company possessions
Theft of company property is insidious behavior of an anti-social nature and is cause for heavy disciplinary punishment. Running away with company possessions without permission is also a cause for disciplinary action for damaging the company.

9. Defamation of character
When an employer’s reputation is slandered on account of an employee’s immoral or illegal conduct, in addition to warning the employee, the employer can also take disciplinary action.

10. Misrepresentation of educational background and career, concealment and falsification of information in the resume, etc.
Misrepresentation of one’s past career is deemed a justifiable reason for disciplinary punishment, not when it may distort the company’s assessment of the employee’s work abilities, character, trustworthiness, etc., but when it disturbs the structure of working conditions such as wage level and position, or when the falsified information infringes upon the company’s actual order and proves damaging to the employer.

Common examples include misrepresentation of educational achievement and jobs done, concealment of ideology or faith, concealment of imprisonment or disciplinary action data, concealment of being a key full-time labor union officials, etc.
1) Where an employee is found to have falsified or concealed his education and experience, the company might choose not to hire him/her(if discovered at the point of recruitment) or might choose not to provide the same working conditions(if discovered either at the point of recruitment or during the course of his/her service to the company). This assumption justifies taking appropriate disciplinary dismissal action
2) Even if an employee who conceals his/her low education background has no problem handling his work despite insufficient education and even if he works diligently for a long period, the reason for the company to take justifiable disciplinary dismissal action remains unchanged.
3) In the event where false education and career details in the resume is the result of a mistake or where such fallacy is so trivial, under special circumstances such as inappropriateness based on social norms, to warrant a dismissal, the company may not have justifiable reason to take dismissal action.

11. Use of violence against coworkers or superiors
In rules of employment and collective agreements, any violent behavior of an employee towards his colleagues and superiors is usually a reason for disciplinary dismissal. This is generally necessary to maintain management order and shall not be deemed as a violation of the principles of the Labor Standards Act. However, where disciplinary dismissal is based on such reason of violence, the company shall confirm various aspects of pre- and post-events including the motive and the rightness or wrongness, etc., of such misconduct so that its adoption of such disciplinary dismissal measures can be deemed as based on justifiable reason and not the result of an abuse of disciplinary rights.