staff being off work

paulwf

You have to look at the big picture, your whole workforce is now annoyed by her so although she is good at her job you need to think about your team otherwise you'll have a much bigger problem on your hands, especially if she is due to take on more responsibility soon.

Please take legal advice first, but I would think you have a right to proof that she had to take time off to care for a dependent. If that is the case then each time she is off without very good reason give her a warning. Make it clear with her the process is verbal, written, final written and out. She can then choose her own destiny.

(Personally I'd find a way to get her out sooner but that is a suggestion if you really don't want to get tough)

Vomityspice

paulwf wrote: »

You have to look at the big picture, your whole workforce is now annoyed by her so although she is good at her job you need to think about your team otherwise you'll have a much bigger problem on your hands, especially if she is due to take on more responsibility soon.

Please take legal advice first, but I would think you have a right to proof that she had to take time off to care for a dependent. If that is the case then each time she is off without very good reason give her a warning. Make it clear with her the process is verbal, written, final written and out. She can then choose her own destiny.

(Personally I'd find a way to get her out sooner but that is a suggestion if you really don't want to get tough)

THis process could take an inordinate amount of time with opportunities to appeal every disciplinary event. Also note that verbal warns have a finite time period so this could also extend the process!

Your 'easiest' route is to follow the advice I gave earlier. Make her redundant, follow the correct procedure and you can be shot of her within 6 week (if your every quick and efficient).

The quickest way would be gross misconduct so has she breached any of the companies policies?? I have to say from experience that current 'favourite' method is the IT misuse reason? If you have a policy that staff can't for example log onto Facebook and you have evidence of her doing it, invite her in to a disciplinary meeting, give her the evidence of the breach, sack for gross misconduct, allow the appeal (with different person overseeing the appeal), who then upholds the dismissal.

That way you will cover yourself from any Employment Tribunal claim she may think she can take.

paulwf

Vomityspice wrote: »

THis process could take an inordinate amount of time with opportunities to appeal every disciplinary event. Also note that verbal warns have a finite time period so this could also extend the process!

Your 'easiest' route is to follow the advice I gave earlier. Make her redundant, follow the correct procedure and you can be shot of her within 6 week (if your every quick and efficient).

The quickest way would be gross misconduct so has she breached any of the companies policies?? I have to say from experience that current 'favourite' method is the IT misuse reason? If you have a policy that staff can't for example log onto Facebook and you have evidence of her doing it, invite her in to a disciplinary meeting, give her the evidence of the breach, sack for gross misconduct, allow the appeal (with different person overseeing the appeal), who then upholds the dismissal.

That way you will cover yourself from any Employment Tribunal claim she may think she can take.

I understand what you are saying but I think the OP has to be careful if they wish to implement your plan. It is the position not the person that is made redundant, i.e. you can't just recruit a new employee to fill the same position.

I may be wrong but it sounds like this is a valuable member of staff (if they turned up!) and will need to be replaced so you couldn't use redundancy without getting a but creative. If the OP just wants to get rid of them and not fill the vacant position it is a good idea though.

TM1976

Whilst you might be obliged to give time off for sickness you don't have to do so for her to get stuff for her mum. As she has also refused to come in this is something that you should give her a formal warning and tell her that you won't be granting leave for this kind of thing in the future, only for her own sickness.

cavework

If she has been employed for less than a year then you can lay her off.
We had an employee just like this. We dismissed her politely saying the business could not support all these short notice days off.
PS have a chat with her first though, she might really value her job and just think you are OK with it all.

jexygirl

We also had a similar situation, when the girl was here, she was great, but more often than not she was off sick (particularly after nights out.. - facebook does have positives it seems!) When she called in sick with stomach upsets, and realised that I would insist she was off until she was at least 48 hours clear of the last bout - she realised she was losing 3 days pay not one, the illness then becames headaches / mum was ill (she actually set someone up to call here one night when she wanted to get off early saying her mum had been taken sick).
This continued, and after numerous chats with her, pointing out that we needed reliability, its a small team etc. it stopped for about 3 weeks, then restarted. When we made it more obvious that we knew she had not been off sick and gave her verbal then written warnings, each time, and she jumped before she was pushed. (she to this day doesnt realise that what she puts on facebook is read by her colleagues who are more loyal to us when she drops them in it)

Since she has left, she became verbally abusive and spread all sorts of rumours about us, simply because she said we were preventing her getting another job as each one she went for asked and took references. We answered honestly, and when the question of sick time came up, we put down what we had recorded. Over 29% sick time.

She threatened to take us to court for a variety of reasons, including that we bullied her, made her ill, the staff pushed her out, she cant help if she or her family was genuinely sick etc. Thank goodness we keep records, and also kept screenshots of facebook pages...

Watch how you deal with it and record EVERYTHING.

Good luck
Jex

vickitoria13

thankyou all so much for replying to me today ! i will be having a chat with her tomorrowand take it from there she has text (which i will remind her she is not to do ) to let me know she will be in tomorrow as normal and aplogised for today and her attitude on the phone so we shall see what happens next i was planning on TM1976'S IDEA and yours too cavework

Meepster

If you put anything in writing to this employee, please make sure you use more fullstops and commas than you have in your posts...

vickitoria13

sorry i know my grammer is awful my partner checks it all for me! he will die when he reads all this.

Meepster

vickitoria13 wrote: »

sorry i know my grammer is awful my partner checks it all for me! he will die when he reads all this.

Sorry, I hope you don't think I was being nasty, I was just making a point. It's a good idea to get someone to check it for you if you aren't good at grammar or spelling, we can't all be good at everything can we??

There's nothing worse than getting "official documentation" and it's full of errors...