Suspended

HO87

The OP's DD hasn't been suspended because of a "crime" but because it is alleged that she has committed an act that may amount to a gross misconduct within her employers code of conduct. It is reasonable to conclude that this is the case given that she was allegedly told that if she is found to be lying it will be a "sackable" offence.

Any investigation should be conducted expeditiously - i.e. not too much dragging of heels. She should be contacted to attend a formal disciplinary hearing fairly shortly. She will be entitled to be accompanied at that meeting either by an accredited union official or another workplace colleague. I recommend that she is accompanied and that whoever accompanies her takes notes of the conversation.

She is entitled to have sight of the allegations against her and to have copies of all documents her employers intend to rely upon at the meeting. She is also entitled (as a matter of natural justice) to have time to consider the content of those documents and prepare questions ahead of time. If, as sometimes occurs, these documents are sprung on her immediately before the meeting she should ask for the meeting to be postponed to enable her to go through them in detail. a 10-minutes read-through isn't enough and should never be agreed to IMHO.

She should ensure that the colleague who witnessed her opening the drink just before going into the staff room is available and willing to repeat this account to the investigating manager.

It would be useful if she was to contact her employers HR department and arrange for copies of the following documents to be made available to her in advance of the meeting as this will show that she is aware of her rights - and is prepared to defend them:

1. A signed copy of her terms and conditions
2. The company grievance and disciplinary procedure
3. Any document/notice which set out the rule it is alleged she contravened if that is not contained within any standard document
4. The staff handbook

If a handbook is produced by her employer then it would be interesting to compare any current edition with that she may have been provided with when she joined the company.

Lastly, tell her not to worry too much. There are plenty of us here who have been through this situation more times than we care to think about and can guide her as to what to do next.

If she is looking for really authoritative advice then I suggest that she telephones ACAS on their helpline number 08457 474747. They really know what they are talking about, its free and you don't have to wait (well beyond getting through on the phone) 14 days as you may well have to do if you go to the CAB.

Good luck.

LittleVoice

HO87 wrote: »

It would be useful if she was to contact her employers HR department and arrange for copies of the following documents to be made available to her in advance of the meeting as this will show that she is aware of her rights - and is prepared to defend them:

1. A signed copy of her terms and conditions
2. The company grievance and disciplinary procedure
3. Any document/notice which set out the rule it is alleged she contravened if that is not contained within any standard document
4. The staff handbook

If a handbook is produced by her employer then it would be interesting to compare any current edition with that she may have been provided with when she joined the company.

Why approach HR for a copy (unless I've missed the statement that she can't find her copy.

Why "signed" in relation to the terms and conditions? Do you mean signed by the employer or signed by the employee? As neither are required by statute to sign such things, then they may well never have been signed.

diable

As HO87 said and make sure she has everything in writing as this can be used against the company if they slip up.

Best of luck and keep us informed.

PC1961

Thanks for everyones help so far. Her contract just shows her hours and says the terms and conditions are as stated in the handbook. Shes going to ring ACAS later.
The annoying thing is that she had worked 2 shifts last weekend (one of them a double shift as they were short staffed) so why didnt they say something then

SarEl

PC1961 wrote: »

DD went to her part time job tonight and has been suspended pending an investigation.
She was told to clock off which means she wont get paid and she was to go home and they would ring her tomorrow.
Can they do this and what should she do

Actually, if she was suspended then she is entitled to be paid. Suspension must be on full normal pay

dickydonkin

Abbafan1972 wrote: »

So she's not allowed to have a drink during the whole of the shift? What kind of a place does she work in?

As it is a supermarket, the banning of drinks will quite possibly be a hygiene issue which is quite common where food is involved.

Someone has already suggested it will likely be an internal policy and the banning of drinks at the checkout will possibly be in place to satisfy audits to ensure accreditation of relevant standards.

Furthermore, it looks unprofessional when someone is swigging on a bottle/can between serving customers.

Certainly where I used to work, food and drink were banned from the production areas even though the product being manufactured was not food, however, it was still classed as a 'food grade' product and we had to conform to BRC, ISO and our customers own audits.

paulwf

Retailers may ban drinks on the shop floor as computerised tills and liquids don't mix, and it can look unprofessional and bottles are left behind cluttering up the till.

Let's get this in perspective though - no sensible manager would see this as a big deal. The incident is a week old and there is no concrete proof and even if the staff member did take a swig of a drink it was one of the hottest days of the year. A quick word to say don't do it again is all any sane manager would do.

There are probably 2 possibilities here. The first is that the DD either isn't doing a good job or is annoying senior staff members for whatever reason and they are finding any excuse to get rid of her. The second is that you have got an obsessive supervisor...supermarkets do funny things to people with all their micro managing, supervisors try and get more power than they have and obsess over the tiniest detail.

Hopefully it has just been taken out of proportion and a store manager will instantly tell the line manager to get real and stop being so silly. However it could be that the DD has made enemies out of the supervisor and line manager in which case if she is dismissed it might not be worth fighting it as once your face doesn't fit it will be hard going back.

SueC_2

SarEl wrote: »

Actually, if she was suspended then she is entitled to be paid. Suspension must be on full normal pay

Unfortunately, that's not a lot of help to her if she's on a zero hours contract and only gets paid for time worked, which may well be the case if it's a part-time job with irregular shifts.

HO87

LittleVoice wrote: »

Why approach HR for a copy (unless I've missed the statement that she can't find her copy.

Why "signed" in relation to the terms and conditions? Do you mean signed by the employer or signed by the employee? As neither are required by statute to sign such things, then they may well never have been signed.

There may well be no requirement at law for these documents to be signed but the majority of companies that I have dealt with require them to be signed by the employee.

I advised that the OP's DD obtains a "signed" copy of her T&C's, in anticipation that she had signed a copy, because I have have been involved in two cases so far this year (and others in the past) where companies have attempted to substitute copies of T&C's that did not accurately reflect the version originally supplied to the employee. In one case the changes was not particularly relevant but in the second case, though subtle, the changes in relation to being laid off work were highly relevant.

T800

what a load of nonsense. In my job I can drink at my desk, go for a break whenever I like, I eat my cereal breakfast at desk in the morning. Wouldnt dream of being disciplined for taking a drink of juice. What would happen next week? Investigation for taking 2 sheets of toilet paper instead of 1? Isnt this more likely to be some type of personal campaign against this worker - bullying perhaps?