Insubordination: Who must give the order?

If you are accused of insubordination at work, your employer may consider they have just cause to terminate your employment immediately. As a result, you may be dismissed for the alleged infraction. However, insubordination does not warrant a just cause termination in all circumstances.

Insubordination in the workplace refers to an employee's intentional refusal to obey an employer's lawful and reasonable orders.

Here are the three elements to be considered insubordination:

• There is a clear reasonable and lawful order;

• The order is given by a person in authority; and

• The order is intentionally disobeyed by the employee.

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Here's more on who can give the order.

1. The employee must know that the supervisor has authority to give an assignment.

   • The test is not whether the company believed the person to be a supervisor, but whether the employee would reasonably know that the person giving the directions was a supervisor with that authority.

2. No pass-through orders.

   • There are cases where a supervisor has passed the order on through another employee (non-supervisor).  For example, the supervisor says to a co-worker, "Go find Joe and tell Joe that he must do the task or face discipline."  Of course, Joe says back to his co-worker, "Let that supervisor tell me himself."   Joe doesn't follow the order, but it's not insubordination.  The person giving the order must be the supervisor.

3. A supervisor should de-escalate a situation, or at least, not escalate it.

   • A supervisor should simply repeat the order without escalating the situation, such as goading a reaction out of an employee.

If there is a reasonable explanation for the disobedience, it may not be insubordination.