Disiplinary and facebook

busterian

OP, as already stated, the issues you have raised are separate ones.

I am HR qualified and I advise the following:

Firstly, You havent had time to prepare sufficiently for such Disciplinary Meeting. Therefore, I suggest you attend the meeting at the given time and ask for a postponement on the grounds that you haven't had this prep time. Also, ask for a copy of the Company Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures. Confirm that your "witness" doesn't have to be a colleague or Union Rep and that you can indeed have your Partner. It will depend on their own Policy on this one.

Then, go and get your evidence together. If you get commission statements and call stat print outs, get them ready and any other evidence that would be relevant to your alleged "under performance". Do not include Facebook issues within this - its separate!

Get together evidence of your Grievance i.e. Facebook Screen Print, Payslips showing different company information etc etc.

Once, the Disciplinary Meeting has been postponed, write a Grievance letter stating that you wish to raise a Grievance in connection with

a) the Office Manager's "Management" ethos and lack of confidentality
b) Pay/Conditions within the Company

Address this Grievance to your MD and not the Office Manager, as part of the Grievance is about her.

When you meet for the postponed Disciplinary Hearing, you need to firstly listen to their points and then counteract with your own. For instance, when they state your low call stats, counteract it by saying "I realise my call stats are low, however if you look at the profit from each call, it is more than some of my Colleagues are bringing in on their high call stats. Surely the profit margin counts more than making lots of fruitless outgoing calls?"

Use the call stats and commission information to show them this.

Good luck!

acebanditcat

The meeting is at 8.30am to ensure i can't access any computer information. We changed computer software companys in december and have had to get used to a completely new system, to which i find alot harder so take me longer as to make sure its correct. As the previous software company pulled the plug on our old system the only sales info i would be able to access is december. Unfortunately december is our worst month as none orders much and it goes very quiet.
We went back to work last MONDAY: Quiet day not many clls going out generally as we know although customers go back to work they wont want to be bombarded on the first day. TUESDAY: Still quiet although a little busier, aware alot of our customers not back due to snow. WEDNEsDAY: I couldn't get to work due to snow phoned in and told to take as holiday. Few hours later text message then phone call at home from office manger saying that MD wont accept holiday have to take it as unpaid leave. THURSDAY: Printout left on my desk between 12 and 1pm (my lunch break) in full view of anyone, from office manager, detailing sales for the week so far. highlighted that i had done approximately £600 less than the next person. ( the person who was given my sales on the previous day made £800 extra from my customers) Also hand written at the bottom the following: "3 calls out, 1 minute and 8 in - you missed out yesterday lets not miss out today too - we want to get paid next month!" (this is with reference to being told by management tuesday afternoon that there were no funds to pay our salaries other than cheque on thursday because we hadn't been trading for two weeks over christmas) Also on my desk was a pile of orders which had been emailed faxed and verbally given to me by either me talking to the customer or from colleagues who had taken messages) by the time i had but all onto the system i had done over £500 profit that day. FRIDAY: call stats passed around the office at 1pm (i was at lunch but happened to be in the room) stated i had done 8 calls out. at the end of friday i had done over £600 profit. The person on facebook said i had done 13 all day but this was never given to me as i had finished work when i can only presume they were given.

busterian

First and foremost, it isn't the fault of any member of staff if the Company cannot pay salaries due to not trading over Xmas. Its their legal obligation to pay you your basic salary.

So, this Disciplinary seems to be on less than a week of sales figures? A week where some customers were still closed and/or catching up from Xmas and the snow caused havoc too.

I would argue this fact in the Disciplinary Meeting too....

busterian

computershack wrote: »

I know who I'd rather have working for me and its not the person who tries to get off the phone as fast as possible to have a high call count. High call counts mean nothing if nothing comes from them. A business doesn't pay the bills based on how many times you can answer the phone in a day - OK, maybe some do - but by how much cash you can generate.

I second that! Unfortunately, Call Centres don't work that way.

Sunshine12

computershack wrote: »

I know who I'd rather have working for me and its not the person who tries to get off the phone as fast as possible to have a high call count. High call counts mean nothing if nothing comes from them. A business doesn't pay the bills based on how many times you can answer the phone in a day - OK, maybe some do - but by how much cash you can generate.

I think you are wrong here. A friend of mine who works for a large financial institution was told that if her calls continued to be more than 3 minutes long she would be up for a disciplinary. If they dont reach a certain number of calls in a day they are also disciplined. She explained to them that some calls take longer and they were having none of it.

lexielou7

acebanditcat - I think the way your employer has handled this is absolutely shocking! take the advice of the OP as to postponing the meeting and making a grievance complaint.

Ultimately I would get this issue dealt with to my satisfaction and then start looking for another job later in the NY.

Oh and don't listen to the !!!!! who have posted those v unhelpful and upsetting comments.:mad:

wontfallforit

I've worked in this kind of role before, and the mantra was always "quality over quantity". Bear in mind that it was a highly target-driven environment, and the entire culture revolved around sales, sales, sales.

So they weren't soft-touches, by far, but the general rule was that you could spend as long as you wanted on a call, if you thought it was going somewhere. What we did had the potential to earn massive profits for the company - so it was more acceptable to come in under-target with quality sales, rather than double your target with a load of rubbish sales.

Call numbers weren't targeted whatsoever, based on the trust that if people were making fewer calls, they must be talking for longer, and generating better sales (9 times out of 10, this was true).

PolishBigSpender

Hmm. Is it just me that's getting the feeling here that they don't have the money to pay her (and the commission) and so want to get rid of her as cheaply as possible?

pitkin2020

computershack wrote: »

I know who I'd rather have working for me and its not the person who tries to get off the phone as fast as possible to have a high call count. High call counts mean nothing if nothing comes from them. A business doesn't pay the bills based on how many times you can answer the phone in a day - OK, maybe some do - but by how much cash you can generate.

I know what your saying but call centres, esp inbound don't work that way, they are usually paid per call not a % of what is sold.

acebanditcat

Thanx lexielou Unfortunately I'm not the strongest of people and often get my words muddled up when trying to explain things and i am dreading the meeting. i didn't sleep at all last night. i had prepared my self for the meeting to a certain extent but am so shocked at what the person wrote on facebook. This person was someone i stuck up for when she first started as she was telling everyone including management within her fist week that she was being bullyed by two memebers of staff. ironically they both eneded up her friends even though they constantly stab each other in the back. Also since the current MD has started he has ensured that various "non complying" members of staff resign though either making things impossible for them. Ironically a woman from accounts resigned on christmas eve he was so estatic and said "good ridance miserable cow" and got quite funny when i said i couldn't agree with him. when asked why i said because she's always been really helpful and never let me down and because she started work a month before me. to which he said "so does that mean your next?" and laughed.