Confused!

Sambucus_Nigra

I refer you to paragraph 2 in my initial post.

One has to chair the meeting, so that if you appeal, the other investgates that appeal. As there are only 2 Directors, it makes sense to do it that way round.

scottish1980_2

yes he is my boss, and yes the one i referred to in the original post.

ohreally

If the management structure comprises two individuals, it may be tricky to allege contaminated proccess.

You may wish to consider puting a toe in the water around exiting under a compromise agreement.

Sambucus_Nigra

ohreally wrote: »

If the management structure comprises two individuals, it may be tricky to allege contaminated proccess.

You may wish to consider puting a toe in the water around exiting under a compromise agreement.

How is it contaminated?

ohreally

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

How is it contaminated?

Its not, I neither said or implied it was.

I'm simply stating if the op wants to run with this then demonstrating process impropriety will be somewhat difficult.

marybelle01

It's really simple stuff here - it just seems to have got complicated. You set up a facebook page to do market research aka ask people questions.You therefore took no orders and accepted no commissions because this was only market research. Simples!

Of course, if you took orders for business from a site you set up in competition with your employers - then it gets complicated. Because your boss then didn't set up a "fake e-mail address" - he set up ANOTHER e-mail address, which any of us can do - and YOU sold him a product. The issue then becomes whether you had a right to set up in competition with your own employer.

Sambucus_Nigra

marybelle01 wrote: »

It's really simple stuff here - it just seems to have got complicated. You set up a facebook page to do market research aka ask people questions.You therefore took no orders and accepted no commissions because this was only market research. Simples!

Of course, if you took orders for business from a site you set up in competition with your employers - then it gets complicated. Because your boss then didn't set up a "fake e-mail address" - he set up ANOTHER e-mail address, which any of us can do - and YOU sold him a product. The issue then becomes whether you had a right to set up in competition with your own employer.

I assumed that he had taken the order as he referred to 'customer'.

Pricivius

As for correct procedures, in an ideal world, person A would raise the complaint, person B would investigate, person C would be the disciplinary officer and person D would be the appeal officer. However, this is not a legal requirement. The Company must approach disciplinaries reasonably, but with due consideration given to the size of the Company and the resources available to it. For example, an appeal officer need not be senior to the disciplinary officer but must have authority to overrule the disciplinary officer's decision and be able to act impartially - usually it would be a senior employee, but not necessarily.

I would suggest this sounds like a small Company and they have used the resources available to them.

marybelle01

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

I assumed that he had taken the order as he referred to 'customer'.

Yes, so did I. In which case he has probably answered his own question! Employers generally don't take too kindly to direct competition from their own staff. It's that whole breach of trust and confidence thing (at best). So it wasn't "market research". It was something else. It was the something else that got him into trouble - not market research!

heretolearn_2

'the same person who made the complaint also held the investigatory meeting and the disciplinary hearing'

OP, this is perfectly legal and normal in a small company. and you were definitely caught acting against your employers interests.

Really, they were trying to do you a favour by letting you resign instead of being dismissed.

Anyway, try and learn one or two lessons from all this but to look on the positive side, maybe this'll be the shove you need to commit to your own business and it'll be a great success.