Disciplinary hearing next week

ableandy

Did your son attend an investigatory meeting? This should have been held to confirm the facts. A copy of the minutes of that meeting plus any other statement etc should have been included with the letter of invitation.

Where the outcome of a disciplinary could be dismissal, this must be included in the letter of invitation. Something similar t:

Since the Company views the allegations against you as gross misconduct, I must inform you that the outcome of this disciplinary hearing could result in your summary dismissal.
Without this your son's dismissal (if it happened) would stand a good chance of being declared as unfair at a tribunal.
Hope all goes well for him

dickydonkin

Proc wrote: »

Opinions on a forum? Who would have thought?

And they say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit!

True, opinions are part and parcel of forums like these, but there is a difference between opinions that are sensible and those that are downright offensive based on assumptions of a person he does not even know.

I am always of the belief that if you don't have anything constructive or helpful to offer or say - keep your gob shut, but then, that is just my errrrrr........opinion!

The OP asked for assistance and advice, not a character assasination of her son.

It may transpire that he is guilty as charged and punished accordingly, but hey, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. We on this forum will not decide the outcome.

PROC Would you take kindly to people slagging off/prejudging your son/daughter on an open forum based on a few posts when they don't even know him/her?

Hopefully you are never called for Jury service!

ceridwen

Well - the only thing I can say here is that in any future jobs it would be by far the wisest thing NOT to check the till to see what sort of money is in there for the morning.

Oh dear - I do wonder whether you believe him because you (understandably) want to do so as his parent - whereas, looking at it from outside, it does sound an odd thing for someone to do and I do wonder whether he has told you the full story.

I'm sorry - for YOU - that your son has done this.

(errrr....you might just like to remove the hint from your initial post as to which shop you are talking about.......:cool:)

dickydonkin

ceridwen wrote: »

Well - the only thing I can say here is that in any future jobs it would be by far the wisest thing NOT to check the till to see what sort of money is in there for the morning.

Oh dear - I do wonder whether you believe him because you (understandably) want to do so as his parent - whereas, looking at it from outside, it does sound an odd thing for someone to do and I do wonder whether he has told you the full story.

I'm sorry - for YOU - that your son has done this.

(errrr....you might just like to remove the hint from your initial post as to which shop you are talking about.......:cool:)

What continent is Farmfoods in then?:D

Sorry ceridwen - couldn't resist but you have a point although the company is not named as such.

As you will note from my posts on this thread, I have looked at it from the perspective as if I was defending/assisting a colleague at work.

Of course there are two sides to any story and I have obviously taken sides with the OP's son.

I am sure there are HR people and managers who have viewed this thread and taken a different view and some have not given a view of the topic but launched personal tirades against individuals - which is not really helpful.

The reality is that like many threads, we may not be aware of all the full facts and I am not accusing the OP of this thread of that BTW. I believe that the OP has posted all of the information she has available to her.

Many people only post what they want people to see and it is possible that vital aspects are omitted (deliberately or otherwise) that could be very relevant to peoples perception of a topic.

Hopefully, the outcome of the hearing on Monday will be fair and result in a favourable decision in the OP's sons favour.

Hootie19 Just out of curiosity, many stores have security cameras aimed at the checkout areas and I was wondering if this was the case at your son's store? If so, this may assist him as it would be unwise to have sinister intentions with the till when CCTV would be recording it.

RobertoMoir

Hootie19 wrote: »

Yes, that's correct.

And the log in details have been changed, but the manager used the new details openly in front of my son today, so he now knows the new log in. He obviously won't use them, but how lax of the manager!

From my perspective as an IT Manager type person...

Well maybe the manager is "lax" but on the other hand merely seeing someone use login credentials does not make it OK to use them. To claim so would be like a car thief going for the "The keys were in the car so it was OK to steal it" defence.

If this is how your son and other employees have come to know and use management logins then the management have done nothing wrong in the procedural sense. If anything the employees using these credentials are almost certainly in breach of company IT policy and, I think, the computer misuse act.

Therefore I'd try hard to steer the subject away from this area if I was your son, or make a full apology and say that he's learnt from the error and it won't happen again if he is given another chance.

It may be that the store management were aware of staff "stealing" logins by shoulder surfing this way and have simply decided to try and make an example of the next person they caught doing it.

Heavy handed? Perhaps, but I'd be pushing for serious action to be taken were this to happen where I worked, to be honest.

Unfortunate for your son? Yes. It's a shame for him that someone else didn't "volunteer" first if "everyone" is doing it.

But to some degree I can see where they are coming from. While I'm happy to accept what you say about your son's intentions being honest, I'm sure you can also accept that this doesn't look good, and that it isn't difficult for them to draw a negative conclusion from someone looking for the till with the biggest float. What if they have suffered losses due to someone else using the manager's login details dishonestly? I'm not suggesting your son should be punished for the actions of other people, of course, but I'm sure you can see why they have to take it seriously.

dickydonkin

It may be that the store management were aware of staff "stealing" logins by shoulder surfing this way and have simply decided to try and make an example of the next person they caught doing it.

Then if the store management were indeed aware of logins being stolen by shoulder surfing, then the sensible approach would surely be prevention. It would seem nothing had been learned as the manager was using the 'new' password quite openly.

It may be that the store management were aware of staff "stealing" logins by shoulder surfing this way and have simply decided to try and make an example of the next person they caught doing it.

If it was the company's intention to 'make an example' of the next person who abused the system in such a way without making any attempt to rectify the situation which would prevent such a repetition, then I have no sympathy with them if they have made no attempt to address the problem.

If burglars were persistently gaining access to your house by a window that had a faulty lock would you wait until the Police caught the next burglar or fix the lock?

A no brainer really!

RobertoMoir

dpassmore wrote: »

Then if the store management were indeed aware of logins being stolen by shoulder surfing, then the sensible approach would surely be prevention. It would seem nothing had been learned as the manager was using the 'new' password quite openly.

There should be an element of trust at work, should there not? An employee should be able to use a computer without being shoulder surfed by other employees just the same as they should be able to put a company owned pen down on the company owned desk while they answer the phone without it being pocketed by other employees in the room.

If it was the company's intention to 'make an example' of the next person who abused the system in such a way without making any attempt to rectify the situation which would prevent such a repetition, then I have no sympathy with them if they have made no attempt to address the problem.

I think disciplining people for abusing others passwords is perfectly legitimate, but the company do need to address the password security issue too. If they are seeing this as an issue then it should be a two pronged "attack" on the problem.

If burglars were persistently gaining access to your house by a window that had a faulty lock would you wait until the Police caught the next burglar or fix the lock?

A no brainer really!

Bit of a strawman that, someone shoulder surfing is more akin to copying your front door key than climbing through a broken window. Still you're right that I should fix my house in that situation, but this does not excuse the burglars does it? I may be a fool if I leave my house insecure but this doesn't alter the fact that the criminals who use that weakness to break in are still, well, being criminal.

Same thing here. The management should be a little smarter about how they protect stuff like this, I would expect them to take reasonable precautions at all times and given the nature of this incident that certainly would include being more discreet with passwords in future, but that's hardly an excuse for unauthorised access.

A more profitable avenue for the OP's son might be to consider how long it's been going on for, and if others have been caught in the past why they haven't been treated the same way.

Hootie19

ceridwen wrote: »

Oh dear - I do wonder whether you believe him because you (understandably) want to do so as his parent - whereas, looking at it from outside, it does sound an odd thing for someone to do and I do wonder whether he has told you the full story.

I know, it sounds a bit odd to me as well. I've asked him several times if that's what he was doing and he is adamant that it is.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was looking for *something* - other than a change float - I don't know what kind of information is accessible on these tills, so don't know what else he could find out. But I 100% believe that he would not steal money. Hew doesn't earn a huge amount, but he is very good with his money and has saved a reasonable amount since he has worked there (wants a car when he's passed his test, and doesn't want to get it on finance).

We are going to visit my friend this evening, who deals with disciplinary hearings as part of her job, and she will tell him what to expect and what kind of questions they are likely to ask.

He is very contrite and knows he's been stupid in using the log in details etc etc.

There are only himself and the manager working in the store on Monday, so I hope they don't rush the meeting in order to get him back on the shop floor asap (assuming they don't fire him immediately).


dpassmore - I will ask if they have security cameras in the store. He's never mentioned them before, but I suppose the occasion has never arisen before where they would be relevant.

dickydonkin

RobertoMoir Your arguments are indeed valid, and I totally agree that there should be an element of trust in the workplace.

I am not questioning the integrity of the OP's son - indeed, the company must trust the lad as it seems he does the banking and I am of the belief that he must handle cash on a daily basis.

There is no accusation or proof of a theft of cash. If he could not be trusted, I would also suspect he would have been suspended immediately after the alleged incident.

BUT..........

This situation may or may not be a case where the company (or certainly the management) are allowing a routine violation of the companies codes of practice by allowing all and sundry to access sensitive information.

This assertion is compounded as the OP has indicated that everyone apparently does the same. I would find it hard to comprehend if the company were not aware of this as it seems to have been a regular occurrence based on the OP's posting.

Of course, that does not make it right as the employees should have been aware they were wrong, but the Management have to shoulder some of the blame as well.

The same problem was rife with a former employer of mine.

The company (a large Pan European Business) were just too lazy to register some relevant employees on their IT system therefore they had to use colleagues passwords to access the company's IT system. These passwords were issued by the Managers - which itself was a breach of the companies IT policy - but became an accepted routine violation.

Would it be fair in those circumstances to discipline those workers using unauthorised passwords - which was technically a gross misconduct matter?

Just before I left the company, I accompanied a fellow union member into a disciplinary hearing with a charge of - breaching the companies IT policy.

That person had sent a personal email from the companies system.

The company attempted dismissal - but having cited the inconsistencies in the companies monitoring of the policy and being 'selective' on who they decide to punish when they were knowingly allowing breaches when it suited.

I suggested that if the company progressed the matter, we would be claiming victimisation.

The result was a hand slap and that was the end of it - and eventually everyone got their own password.

Again, I reiterate, two wrongs don't make a right, but a company needs to be consistent in their monitoring of their policies and procedures due to the fact that even if an employee is guilty of any 'offence', the company can still find themselves taken to tribunal for procedural shortcomings.

In this case, If all of the information has been forthcoming, it seems there have been some procedural shortcomings even BEFORE the hearing. I am referring to the letter and important information that was not forthcoming to the OP's son.

I think we are in agreement that the OP's son has potentially breached a company policy - but it would seem that the policy and its monitoring is sadly lacking.

Hopefully the OP will post the outcome of the hearing and it would be interesting to know how the company address the matter.

dickydonkin

There are only himself and the manager working in the store on Monday, so I hope they don't rush the meeting in order to get him back on the shop floor asap (assuming they don't fire him immediately).

Well I would hope they do rush the meeting to get him on the shop floor - that means he will still have a job!

I wonder who then is conducting the hearing?

Make sure the structure and attendees is in accordance with the disciplinary policy and make sure he asks again prior to the hearing for the relevant policies (including the disciplinary policy) he has alleged to have breached.