Discliplinary gross misconduct or misconduct

employmentmadjonno

Hi

I really need some advice.

My partner who has worked for her employer for 10 years as a senior manager has made an error by not sending through a termination of employment letter for an employee prior to the employees hearing to stop their pay in case they were dismissed.

this has resulted in the employee being paid for a month more than they should have. she has now been told she will be investigated for this breach with the possible outcome being a discliplinary hearing.


there's no dispute she made the mistake and she accpets this but its a first offence so to speak. She expects the investigation to uphold the fact she made the error and a discliplanry review to be suggested.

can this be considered gross misconduct could she be sacked after 10 years unblemished serviced ofr this one error or in the eyes of the law would it be general misconduct.


if anyone has any adivce i'd really appreciate it as i know her company are looking to lose heads anyway they can otuside of the redundancy process.

just to be clear it is her job to send this paperwork and she accpets it was an oversight she would fully accept a warning as it was her mistake. This is the first time she's ever made a mistake of this kind though in 10 years of service. if worst case happened are there grounds to appeal with her long service.

help

ILW

It would be a competancy rather than misconduct issue.

Emmzi

on the bare details given, and assuming the loss to the company was not in the tens of thousands, I'd do a warning for this, not a dismissal. But I'm not her manager so don't take that as law!

Jarndyce

What the law says is "Is it within the range of reasonable responses for a reasonable employer to dismiss". I'd say no, but you might be unlucky and get the one employer and one Tribunal in 100 that says yes. I hope not.

employmentmadjonno

Thanks everyone.

It's not in the tens of thousands it could be max a cost of 1000 for the business. we are talking a huge corporation in the big blue chip sector. they spent 10 times this on temporary ornament for a party.

Does anyone think there might be a case for tribunal if it goes bad. I'm not sure what you can claim unfair dismissal for.

Judith_W

Does your OH have a company handbook as it usually details in there what would be gross misconduct. Call ACAS if you need advice about appealing

heretolearn_2

Why drive yourself into a panic thinking about what will probably not happen? Give her support, calm her down, reassure her that she isn't going to be dismissed over her, it isn't helpful to wind her up talking about dismissals and tribunals etc, when all that is probably going to happen is a small slap on the wrist with a written warning. Or a big slap on the wrist with a final written warning.

I'd be extremely surprised if any firm would treat this as gross misconduct - of course it's a possibility, but a pretty minute one. You'll drive each other nuts in the run up to the meeting if you don't get this back into proportion. The time to start worrying about dismissal and tribunals is when it happens - unless of course it's such an obvious dismissal case like the berk of a lorry driver who posted here a couple of days ago after being caught using his mobile while driving. Can you see the difference?

I think it's more helpful right now for you to keep things calm and back in proportion if she is panicking, not join in, to be honest.

McKneff

Apart from anything else, the company will suffer no loss as they are quite within the law to claim the money back which was paid in error.

Emmzi

I'll eat your hat if it goes bad. It's human error, it happens. Unless there is something else you aren't telling us... it'll probably be ok. Not pleasant, get a nice bottle of wine ready for after the meeting - but ok.

DVardysShadow

For anything to be gross misconduct, I would think that there would need to be a strong element of wilfulness about the matter. That is an opinion rather than fact, but if you did a focus group analysis of various hypothetical workplace offences, I reckon that is what would pan out for gross misconduct.

KiKi

employmentmadjonno wrote: »

Does anyone think there might be a case for tribunal if it goes bad. I'm not sure what you can claim unfair dismissal for.

Tribunal?! You're getting ahead of yourself. This is HIGHLY unlikely to end in dismissal. I'd be 99.99% sure it won't.

Gross misconduct is usually wilful, and even gross negligence would have to have a more damaging effect than £1000 to a blue chip. They can reclaim any money anyway, so no loss to the company. She knows she made a mistake, she'll say this to the investigatory team, it will probably end in a slap on the wrist, don't do it again.

IF it goes to disciplinary - and I'd say there's a good chance it won't - it *could* be a verbal warning. At the absolute worst I'd say a written, but I think even that's highly unlikely.

I would be utterly gobsmacked if she was dismissed.

Don't go thinking of the ET road just yet, it won't help your wife or your mindset! IF anything bad comes of this then come back, but really, it's not at all likely.

KiKi