Disciplinary while on maternity..

olly300

dpassmore - you are correct it's 2 weeks for office workers and 4 weeks for factory workers

pelirocco

You should have been given 48 hrs notice to attend a meeting ,outlining what was to be discussed and what the possible outcome would be , you should also have been made aware that you were entitled to have a union rep or work colleague to accompany you ( in writing)

dickydonkin

pelirocco wrote: »

You should have been given 48 hrs notice to attend a meeting ,outlining what was to be discussed and what the possible outcome would be , you should also have been made aware that you were entitled to have a union rep or work colleague to accompany you ( in writing)

I stand to be corrected, but as the first meeting was for investigation purposes only, there is no legal requirement for the OP to be accompanied.

Of course, most companies will allow this in an investigation hearing, but prior to the disciplinary hearings commencement, yes, the OP should have been informed of her rights to be accompanied.

Debt_Free_Chick

purpleclaire788 wrote: »

Basically I work in the personal injury industry (yeah I know, groans all round - lol, but it pays the rent!) I deal with claims from start to finish, and basically what all 4 of us had done was referred new claims from existing clients, incorrectly to an external referral company. Apparently what we should have done was given the details of the new claim to our boss to take on

Do you have a process or procedures manual at all? What does that say about referral of claims from existing clients? Anything specific? Or nothing at all?

If there is no procedures manual, how do new staff know what to do? How are they trained on the company's processes and by whom?

(Trying to establish if there is a procedure which has been broken, or if there's actually no procedure at all!!)

cazziebo

Just to clarify, business was coming in but you were passing it out to an external party and getting paid for it?

How were you getting paid? If it's not through your current employer then I think you'll have a difficult time proving it's a training issue.

(Can I also throw in that being on maternity leave does not "protect" an employee from disciplinary action? Otherwise that would be very unfair discrimination against those not on maternity leave)

pelirocco

dpassmore wrote: »

I stand to be corrected, but as the first meeting was for investigation purposes only, there is no legal requirement for the OP to be accompanied.

Of course, most companies will allow this in an investigation hearing, but prior to the disciplinary hearings commencement, yes, the OP should have been informed of her rights to be accompanied.

Tbh i was finding it hard to follow the posts ............its just as a company we always go for the meeting option

HO87

Aside from the niceties that should have applied as far as the OP is concerned (and as already pointed out) the meeting she was asked to attend was not a disciplinary meeting (for which some notice, representation and copies of relevant documents would have applied) the operative word used by the OP is "investigative". As a consequence the company are under no obligation to give notice (although from a practical point of view that is the only way the OP could have been involved), and the attendees have no automatic right to be provided with copy documents or to be presented.

If I am reading the OP's account of what was going on correctly then work coming into her company that should properly have been kept within it was being passed out to an external company and the members of staff involved in forwarding on the work were being paid directly by the third-party company.

@ OP is that correct? Perhaps you could explain it a little more if that was incorrect. Is the third-party company also regulated by the MoJ? Who set up this arrangement? Did you boss know about the arrangement beforehand? How exactly were you and your colleagues being paid?

purpleclaire788

Zazen999 wrote: »

What were you actually taught to do with new claims?

I run new Personal injury claims from start to finish

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

Do you have a process or procedures manual at all? What does that say about referral of claims from existing clients? Anything specific? Or nothing at all?

If there is no procedures manual, how do new staff know what to do? How are they trained on the company's processes and by whom?

(Trying to establish if there is a procedure which has been broken, or if there's actually no procedure at all!!)

Nope nothing in the staff handbook at all regarding this issue, new staff are trained by old staff, who picked up the job as they go along, training is non existent in our place, when I left for maternity I had to write a guide on how to do my job, no-one checked it, or looked at it, and the poor replacement had only that to go on!

cazziebo wrote: »

Just to clarify, business was coming in but you were passing it out to an external party and getting paid for it?

How were you getting paid? If it's not through your current employer then I think you'll have a difficult time proving it's a training issue.

(Can I also throw in that being on maternity leave does not "protect" an employee from disciplinary action? Otherwise that would be very unfair discrimination against those not on maternity leave)

Ah sorry, that does look terrible reading it like that lol, basically if we found a new claim (someone who'd had a accident and wanted to claim for it) our boss would give us £X for it, however by sending it outside to come back in, if you like, we got almost double. We were all being paid directly by the external referrer, not our employer - agreed, could have difficulty in arguing training, however we were only ever told "if you bring a new claim in we'll give you £X" that was it, nothing about not referring it externally etc

HO87 wrote: »

@ OP is that correct? Perhaps you could explain it a little more if that was incorrect. Is the third-party company also regulated by the MoJ? Who set up this arrangement? Did you boss know about the arrangement beforehand? How exactly were you and your colleagues being paid?

The external source was regulated by MoJ, all legit etc, the company we used is used by our company also to get new claims in, so basically instead of

a) New claim -> send to boss -> £x (if its a staff referral paid by boss)
I did
b) New claim -> send externally - > came back to our company -> paid £X by referal company directly -> Boss pays referral company.

Sorry its a nightmare to try and explain.

If I just hand my notice in today, with 7 months Mat leave to go, will I still get SMP till October or will it end after my 4 weeks notice period?

Thanks guys, really appreciate your time to answer this one

Zazen999

Zazen999 wrote: »

What were you actually taught to do with new claims?

purpleclaire788 wrote: »

I run new Personal injury claims from start to finish

Hi

Sorry, I meant 'what were you actually taught to do with new claims'. ie what were you TAUGHT to do with them - ie a step by step procedure to follow from the moment a new claim comes into the office?

Ie

What did they tell you to actually do with each new claim?

[We're trying to help you get off this, so please can you assist by telling us step by step what THEY TOLD you to do from the moment a new claim comes into the office].

They must have told you to do something or you'd have sat there twiddling your thumbs on day 1.

surreysaver

jdturk wrote: »

Being on maternity leave doesn't give an automatic right to no contact from your employer,

Yes it does.