Discplinary

Morganarla

A situation I'm glad I'm not in, but a dear friend is. Hoping someone has any advice. Please no judgemental comments, what is done is done.

A male employee sends glamour modelling type pics (with the appropriate bits blacked out) of a female colleague to other male colleagues using work email. The pictures were obtained from a public social networking site. The female employee found out, lodged a complaint with HR and now the employee that sent the images has a scheduled disciplinary meeting as a result.

Is there anything that he can say to try and redeem himself here? He realizes how stupid it was to use work facilities and also to send what he sent in the first place.

If an employee (who is great at his job, no other faults whatsoever) was sat in front of you and had a chance to explain himself, in this situation, what would he have to say to convince you to not take disciplinary action against him? (or lenient action only).

onlyforboards_2

I am not being judgemental here at all but there is very little that can be said without sounding so.
Even if the photos were not glamour model shots he would still be in trouble for posting them using work email to work colleagues and only male ones. He is likely to be done for sexual harassment. The fact that the photos are in the public domain makes no difference it was work time work facilities and obviously done with a non professional motive.
I would not want this man on my team or in my office.

Fire_Fox

The company will have a policy on such matters, if the managers don't follow the policy the female member of staff could still take the matter further. The employee has probably breached more than one rule, in that they used work facilites and/ or work time as well as the sexual nature of the e-mail. Is your friend a member of the union and have they asked to have a representative at the disciplinary hearing?

Morganarla

Thanks for the replies so far. I maybe should've added that the female employee no longer works at the company and left for reasons completely seperate from this.

As far as I know he is not a member of the union, but they have said he can have a colleague with him during the meeting. I offered to be that person as no-one else is aware of this and he'd prefer to keep it that way.

Oldernotwiser

What was his reason for sending them and what text did he accompany them with?

Surely all the male employees know about this already as he's sent this to them?

Morganarla

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

What was his reason for sending them and what text did he accompany them with?

Surely all the male employees know about this already as he's sent this to them?

Sorry I meant aside from those obviously already involved. The images were only sent to two people, not every male in the department.

How to put this tactfully - I think he sent them because they were sexy looking pictures (:o) and he thought the two males in question would appreciate seeing them (obvious for personal reasons..)

Oldernotwiser

MrsMcLaren wrote: »

How to put this tactfully - I think he sent them because they were sexy looking pictures (:o) and he thought the two males in question would appreciate seeing them (obvious for personal reasons..)

But what did he write when he sent them - this could be as important than the actual pictures.

juliescot

He will doubtless have breached the companies IT policy.

It is up to the manager(s) to decide the severity of the punishment.

He may get a written warning or he may be dismissed if it is considered gross misconduct. The company will have to be consistent and if something like this has happened before, with other members of staff, he will have to be treated in a similar manner.

All he can really do it say sorry and ask for forgiveness and assure his employers he will never do anything like this again.

EDIT - did he "censor" the pictures himself?

Zazen999

A - I agree; what was the accompanying text?
B - What timescales are we talking here; if she lodged a complaint did she lodge it the day she left as I'd have thought that the company would act on something like this with immediate effect?
C - What possible excuse could there be for this behaviour? Why did he do it [really]?
D - did he sign an IT useage policy or get given guidelines on IT? [if not, this might get it from gross misconduct and a sacking to a final written warning]
E - Is he sorry he got caught or really sorry he did it? You say it was stupid to use work equipment, would he have done this on his own equipment to work colleagues? Sorry, but does he not realise just what he has done?

Morganarla

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

But what did he write when he sent them - this could be as important than the actual pictures.

Sorry I did see that part of your question but forgot to answer As far as I know, there wasn't any text to go with it. But surely he must've said something. I will ask him.

juliescot wrote: »

He will doubtless have breached the companies IT policy.

It is up to the manager(s) to decide the severity of the punishment.

He may get a written warning or he may be dismissed if it is considered gross misconduct. The company will have to be consistent and if something like this has happened before, with other members of staff, he will have to be treated in a similar manner.

All he can really do it say sorry and ask for forgiveness and assure his employers he will never do anything like this again.

EDIT - did he "censor" the pictures himself?

He didn't censor the pictures himself no. They were already censored on the social networking site.

Something similar in nature on a much larger, serious scale happened very recently within the same department, which involved the dismissal of two employees (male and female)..

Zazen999 wrote: »

A - I agree; what was the accompanying text?
B - What timescales are we talking here; if she lodged a complaint did she lodge it the day she left as I'd have thought that the company would act on something like this with immediate effect?
C - What possible excuse could there be for this behaviour? Why did he do it [really]?
D - did he sign an IT useage policy or get given guidelines on IT? [if not, this might get it from gross misconduct and a sacking to a final written warning]

A - will find out.
B - Not entirely sure, I get the impression that she lodged the complaint whilst still working there, the male in question was spoken to at the time, she left soon after, and since the recent similar, more serious case within the department happening, it is only now that the meeting has been booked. I'm not sure how long between these though.
C - the same reasons I put above, and possibly thought it made it a bit more ok to do it seeing as the female employee was most certainly not a shy and retiring wallflower at work. (example walking up the dept in a short flappy skirt that shows bare buttocks every time she took a step...)

The company does have guidelines as to what comopany email can be used for, and I'm sure explicit images would come under that.

Sorry I'm being a bit vague on some points here, I only got told this rather hurriedly last night. I am going to talk to him today and try and get some more information to try and assess the situation a bit better.

Vader123

Trying to be positive for you, but I can't see anything other than a dismissal here.

He can't change what has happened, all he can do is learn from the mistake and plan for the future.

Should it all go the way I describe (and I think it will) I would look for a exit strategy and concentrate on the reference he will get.

Even something along the lines of "I will resign now if I can have a reference to take with me outlining my employment details" (position held, dates etc).

Resigning or getting the sack could also impact on his JSA with a sanction of up to 26 weeks.

I would do damage control.

Vader