Taking a wrongful dismissal case to tribunal

WeakHeart

Anihilator wrote: »

Are you telling me that you think that hanging up on a customer 10 times in a year wouldnt be gross misconduct?

Deliberate and unjustified hang ups 10 times a year yes BUT as most people who work in a phone based environment will know, 10 calls in a year where the advisor has ended a call can also and often be quite acceptably justified.

EDIT: Plus is very common for a % of calls to not make it through the transfer process for a variety of reasons

dmg24

aj2703, just to let you know that links (or any attempt at circumventing the rule) are not allowed in signatures. Please remove the link in your signature, as it will avoid inconveniencing the Abuse Team with reports about it.

lufcgirl

I know a guy who hung up on one in every two calls, and was indeed sacked for gross misconduct.

10 calls in 12 months is exceptionally low if you ask me. Theres any number of reasons as to why someone would need to terminate a call, for example if a customer was rude, or accidentally pressed the release button (believe me this can happen!) and then called the customer straight back. On the basis of 20 working days a month, I'd probably say on a normal day you'd handle around 40 calls, so thats 9,600 a year. And you're telling me that out of 9,600 people, ten ending the call or being hung up on is a high number?! I think there must be more than OP is letting on for it to be a dismissal matter.

Anihilator

lufcgirl wrote: »

I know a guy who hung up on one in every two calls, and was indeed sacked for gross misconduct.

10 calls in 12 months is exceptionally low if you ask me. Theres any number of reasons as to why someone would need to terminate a call, for example if a customer was rude, or accidentally pressed the release button (believe me this can happen!) and then called the customer straight back. Out of 20 working days a month, thats 240 days in a year. I'd probably say on a normal day you'd handle around 40 calls, so thats 9,600 a year. And you're telling me that out of 9,600 people, ten ending the call or being hung up on is a high number?!

Yes but this isnt the case
They have accused him of 10 deliberate unjustified hang ups which he hasnt logged or explained at the time.

If he had logged abuse, or IT problems etc he wouldnt be in this situation and on the basis If I was a manager in a call centre and found 10 deliberate hang ups in a 12 month period I would want to dismiss

Its undoubtadly common but these people also need to realise the risk of sack when they get caught.

lufcgirl

How do they know it isn't justified if they don't have a call listening system or monitoring system in place to prove it as the OP said?

WASHER

lufcgirl wrote: »

I know a guy who hung up on one in every two calls, and was indeed sacked for gross misconduct.

10 calls in 12 months is exceptionally low if you ask me. Theres any number of reasons as to why someone would need to terminate a call, for example if a customer was rude, or accidentally pressed the release button (believe me this can happen!) and then called the customer straight back. On the basis of 20 working days a month, I'd probably say on a normal day you'd handle around 40 calls, so thats 9,600 a year. And you're telling me that out of 9,600 people, ten ending the call or being hung up on is a high number?! I think there must be more than OP is letting on for it to be a dismissal matter.

I agree, I wouldn't have thought it would be classed as fraud either.

WASHER

dmg24 wrote: »

Fair enough - reported to Abuse.

I've reported the signature as well.

EllieA_3

How would we go about proving it? As people have pointed out we can say till we are blue in the face that he didn’t do it, but we can’t prove it.

I mean if we could access their systems perhaps we could prove that 10 calls dropping out in 12 months wasn’t unusual, but something tells me they aren’t going to willingly hand over that sort of data. Surely the tribunal would ask if it was an unusual occurrence? because i would honestly be VERY VERY suprised if it is was unusual, as someone said thousands of calls a year some are bound to go astray.

Asking other employee’s is a bit pointless because as a whole the staff have no idea of those sorts of figures it only gets bought up when they do these sorts of dismissals also no-one wants to put their own jobs at risk.

Anihilator

lufcgirl wrote: »

How do they know it isn't justified if they don't have a call listening system or monitoring system in place to prove it as the OP said?

They have a system that logged the call ; the action taken and what should have been done. They have a system that shows this didnt happen.

I would suggest for an ET that counts as evidence that calls were not being trasnferred that shouldnt have and that it will be for the OP to prove there was genuine reasons for this.

For example if calls were lost because people hung up he should have recorded this.

aj2703

EllieA wrote: »

How would we go about proving it? As people have pointed out we can say till we are blue in the face that he didn’t do it, but we can’t prove it.

I mean if we could access their systems perhaps we could prove that 10 calls dropping out in 12 months wasn’t unusual, but something tells me they aren’t going to willingly hand over that sort of data. Surely the tribunal would ask if it was an unusual occurrence?

Asking other employee’s is a bit pointless because as a whole the staff have no idea of those sorts of figures it only gets bought up when they do these sorts of dismissals also no-one wants to put their own jobs at risk.

I would have thought it would be upto them to prove it as they have made the accusation and fired him, i maybe wrong though. What does your solicitor say.?.