Suspended from work pending disciplinary hearing-advice please

amandacat

I have been suspended from work pending a disciplinary hearing for 3 counts of gross misconduct. I am not alone-10 staff and 2 managers are currently suspended for the same reasons as me.

I work for a global company and have done for just over a year. Myself and the other staff were trained by the two managers to complete and file paperwork in a certain way which we all accepted as correct and followed. Now it turns out that these practices were incorrect and constitute gross misconduct because of the incorrect filing and because processes have not been followed correctly. This has been classed my the company as 'falsifying' records.

We were all interviewed and this was recorded by audio tape. All 10 staff have said the same thing but the 2 managers have denied it. We have now all been suspended while this is being investigated and have a forthcoming hearing. The investigator during our interviews explained to us why these practices are wrong and we all understood once explained how these could be classed as misconduct, but as we had all been trained this way we all accepted it as correct and never questioned that it might be misconduct.

We have been given letters explaining the counts of gross misconduct and have been advised in the letter that we could be dismissed. Our accounts typed up on paper have been twisted to indicate that we are all aware of how this could affect the company. In our hearing we will have the chance to give our side of the story and then a decision will be made that day about the outcome.

We all feel so badly treated and could all lose our jobs or at best receive a disciplinary on our record because of two managers not training us correctly.

I had already handed in my notice just before this all started but now am worried that if my new employer have not yet referenced me then they will withdraw my job offer.

Can anyone advise me on the best course of action, I could accept this if I had knowingly breached company policy but I have put my trust in managers who have now put us in a position which could ruin our lives.

robredz

Phone ACAS, and try to get advice from CAB, perhaps you could all get together and consult a solicitor competent in employment law.
The whole premise of misconduct seems a bit iffy here, as why has the alleged errors come to light now? Why have you all not had the opportunity to be trained in the correct procedures, as it seems that the managers are culpable here not the staff who would not be aware of the error. You should possibly refuse to accept the accounts typed up as being accurate and ask them to be corrected to reflect what you actually said, if they refuse it may be useful if the matter ends up at a tribunal.

Bottom line is get professional advice PDQ, before a well known troll posts that you are all doomed

wontfallforit

robredz wrote: »

Bottom line is get professional advice PDQ, before a well known troll posts that you are all doomed

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Anihilator

Misfiling wouldnt be treated as misrecording etc or gross misconduct. Must be more to this.

PandorasJar

Anihilator wrote: »

Misfiling wouldnt be treated as misrecording etc or gross misconduct. Must be more to this.

That would be true to an everyday job, but if misfiling leads to breaches in confidentiality etc then it could be.

Citizen's Advice should be an immediate stopping off point. Personally I would inform the job you've applied for of the details you know, rather than them finding out elsewhere.

P

robredz

Anihilator wrote: »

Misfiling wouldnt be treated as misrecording etc or gross misconduct. Must be more to this.

Right on cue, Anihilator, but OP needs to explain why they got nasty straight off with no effort to retrain or correct them before going down the DP route. Perhaps they want to downsize without going through correct procedures, and like other employers have done don't follow the letter of the law, or good practice; but make it up as they go along.

ariarnia

Do you have training records and do your managers monitor your work/give you performance reviews?

terra_ferma

Very unusual for staff to be held accountable for instructions given to them by their manager, and for 12 people to be disciplined at the same time (this is not to say that it would not happen).

Surely there must be an argument in there that the company, more senior managers, have not put controls in place to ensure this could happen.
Unless the 12 people were all gaining personally from it?

Either the employers are out of their mind, or the OP is not telling the whole story...? (and I'm totally unbiased as to which applies....)

robredz

ariarnia wrote: »

Do you have training records and do your managers monitor your work/give you performance reviews?

Surely the training records would have been signed off and passed to HR, who should have picked up on any problems at that stage not 12 months + post training, so really any fault should lie with the managers, the staff should have had remedial training to correct this issue and ensure compliance with company policy. Smells like a get rid excuse imho. Others may know more, but OP and colleagues NEED to seek appropriate advice collectively. Is a union involved?

amandacat

thanks for replies. To clear some points up, firstly the company are making redundancies as 30% of the workforce must go. However voluntary redundancy was offered and they had more staff apply than they needed and so some were refused.

There was no personal gain from the alleged misconduct and from what I understand the team are targeted each week on processed applications. Some of the applications we start at the end of the week, we were told to half complete and finish the next week so we met the following weeks target. This is how we were all told to operate and we accepted that this must be the company norm. We received no credit for hitting our weekly targets and no there was no personal gain in us following these instructions.

robredz

amandacat wrote: »

thanks for replies. To clear some points up, firstly the company are making redundancies as 30% of the workforce must go. However voluntary redundancy was offered and they had more staff apply than they needed and so some were refused.

There was no personal gain from the alleged misconduct and from what I understand the team are targeted each week on processed applications. Some of the applications we start at the end of the week, we were told to half complete and finish the next week so we met the following weeks target. This is how we were all told to operate and we accepted that this must be the company norm. We received no credit for hitting our weekly targets and no there was no personal gain in us following these instructions.

Looks like the managers used the end of week applications held back towards the next weeks targets, in breach of company policy. I may be wrong but they should have targeted the managers, and retrained you. I think they have seen a possible opportunity to shed some workers without the costs of redundancy imho