Insubordination occurs when an employee willfully disobeys or disregards a superior's legitimate directive. Abusive language by employees toward supervisors and others may also be considered insubordination.

The reasons for not tolerating insubordination are obvious — employees need to know that you, as the employer, are calling the shots. Insubordination is clearly not acceptable in an employment relationship, and you don't need to have a policy on it in order to discipline or fire someone for insubordination. However, a policy or general rule that insubordination will not be tolerated can be useful if you ever need to defend your actions in court.

What constitutes insubordination? If you are ever sued for discriminatory conduct because of your treatment of an allegedly insubordinate employee, or if you want to challenge payment of unemployment benefits to a worker fired for insubordination, you will generally have to show that:

• a direct order was issued to an employee
• the employee received and understood the order
• the employee refused to obey the order through an explicit statement of refusal or through nonperformance

In cases of abusive language, consider the context in which the incident occurred. An employee is more likely to be found to have engaged in insubordination if the abusive language:

• was not provoked by the supervisor
• was spoken in the presence of other employees or customers
• was not an example of shop talk in the workplace

Here are some more issues you may want to consider:

• questions that you should ask before you react to insubordinate behavior
• how to deal with an insubordinate employee
• written insubordination policies