Suspended from work

indeeptrouble

A bit of an update.

Spoke to acas. To be honest the 'girl' wasn't that helpful. Seemed in a hurry to get me off the phone. However she did give me a few 'pointers' but these had already been given to me here.

Then I spoke to the Union who have said I'm not the only one who was suspended for this 'odd' reason on Friday. They will fight it with me. They also think the company has 'another' reason for the way they are acting at the moment. Both of us are on higher pay and better working conditions than those getting taken on at the moment.

Last night was a nightmare. My so called time off work resulted me getting up at 5.00am. I have 2 court cases going on with the banks taking me to court and I am trying to turn the screw on them in relation to charges. Accompanied with this I feel a wreck at the moment. Be funny if the 2 court cases and my 'potential' disciplinary were all on the same day.

Anybody know the definition of stress :rolleyes:

Thanks again for all the support.

firesidemaid

hi there.

glad you have got some help and made some headway today - great news that the union will help fight your case and another.

it is so shocking that companies think they can get away with this kind of treatment. it happened to a friend's workmates. several of them were 'got rid of' for a rubbish reason to make way for cheaper labour. they all got dismissed - even though they knew it would be unfair dismissal.

they hoped they would all get fed up, forget about it or get other jobs - they took ages to have the hearing (which meant no pay post dismissal).

anyway, they all hung in there, got the union involved and threatened an industrial tribunal as the next step. they overturned their decision and offered them money to leave (wrong also, but near christmas - 2K at first, refused and raised to 4/5K) or their jobs back.

you should have no probs with this with the union involved. good luck and let us know how you get on.:D

poe.tuesday

hi indeeptrouble

sorry I have not posted in a while, I do hope that you are keeping positive and glad to hear that you are going to fight them, but don't let it become an obsession, I understand you want to clear your name but at the end of the dey, you have nothing to prove to anyone, you and the people who mean something to you know the truth, that's all that counts, sod the rest of them, they mean nothing to you so you have nothing to prove to them

keep smiling and let us know how things are

indeeptrouble

Thanks Poe and Sazzacat,

Had a 'better' nights sleep. Still up at 6.30am ready for work but nowhere to go. A bit like being all dressed up of a Saturday night but not having a date

Waited for the postman. No news. So I guess I just have to wait. Going to take advantage of the sun today and get some painting done outside. This will keep me occupied.

Will let you all know when anything happens.

Regards
Indeeptrouble

CFC

Hi Indeeptrouble.

Firstly, don't get yourself worked up. The company has to act to protect itself. You don't say what sector of call centre that you work in, but a brand has a recognised value. You are under suspicion - not yet presumed guilty- of devaluing that brand by hanging up on customers.

You have been suspended simply because many call centres will suspend on full pay in that situation, and it will frequently be considered to be gross misconduct (that is what triggers the suspension on full pay while you are under investigation). Just because you have been suspended does not mean that the company has already decided that you have definitely been hanging up on people.

When you get the invitation to a disciplinary hearing, you will receive a copy of all documentation relating to the alleged hanging up with your letter. They are obliged to send you a copy of any evidence that they are going to use in the hearing so that you can see it beforehand.

Have you been misusing the system or been found misusing the system previously in any way at all? I don't ask to accuse you, but you will need to bear in mind any previous discussions you have had with any managers or call coaches - eg have you ever done the 'ready/release' trick so you are placed at the back of the call queue? If not, excellent. If so, you need to consider what effect that will have had on current perceptions.

Next - is it only one day with an abnormally large number of short calls, or is is across a selection of days? You mentioned logging a fault with IT - did you notice that you had taken a higher volume of calls that day or had strange disconnects, and if you did notice this did you mention it to a Team Leader? If you did notice you had a lot of strange disconnects, why did you not mention it?

Next question - are all calls supposed to be logged? If so, did you log an outcome for all calls? What call outcomes are shown for the day? If there is no system logging available, and there are no recorded calls available, and the abnormal call pattern is only on one day, what do you think leads or might lead management to believe you have been hanging up on calls?

If there is no pattern of abnormal calls, and it is only on the one day that they have seen, plus you had an issue with your pc that day and got IT to look at your machine, it is unlikely that you will have a problem once these facts come out. These are points you should make in your hearing.

I have no intention of upsetting you by writing these questions - I'm just trying to get you to think around all sides of the issue before you get into a hearing where you will have to consider these factors.

indeeptrouble

CFC wrote: »

Hi Indeeptrouble.

Firstly, don't get yourself worked up. The company has to act to protect itself. You don't say what sector of call centre that you work in, but a brand has a recognised value. You are under suspicion - not yet presumed guilty- of devaluing that brand by hanging up on customers.

You have been suspended simply because many call centres will suspend on full pay in that situation, and it will frequently be considered to be gross misconduct (that is what triggers the suspension on full pay while you are under investigation). Just because you have been suspended does not mean that the company has already decided that you have definitely been hanging up on people.

When you get the invitation to a disciplinary hearing, you will receive a copy of all documentation relating to the alleged hanging up with your letter. They are obliged to send you a copy of any evidence that they are going to use in the hearing so that you can see it beforehand.

Have you been misusing the system or been found misusing the system previously in any way at all? I don't ask to accuse you, but you will need to bear in mind any previous discussions you have had with any managers or call coaches - eg have you ever done the 'ready/release' trick so you are placed at the back of the call queue? If not, excellent. If so, you need to consider what effect that will have had on current perceptions.

Next - is it only one day with an abnormally large number of short calls, or is is across a selection of days? You mentioned logging a fault with IT - did you notice that you had taken a higher volume of calls that day or had strange disconnects, and if you did notice this did you mention it to a Team Leader? If you did notice you had a lot of strange disconnects, why did you not mention it?

Next question - are all calls supposed to be logged? If so, did you log an outcome for all calls? What call outcomes are shown for the day? If there is no system logging available, and there are no recorded calls available, and the abnormal call pattern is only on one day, what do you think leads or might lead management to believe you have been hanging up on calls?

If there is no pattern of abnormal calls, and it is only on the one day that they have seen, plus you had an issue with your pc that day and got IT to look at your machine, it is unlikely that you will have a problem once these facts come out. These are points you should make in your hearing.

I have no intention of upsetting you by writing these questions - I'm just trying to get you to think around all sides of the issue before you get into a hearing where you will have to consider these factors.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I haven't heard from work yet so the suspension goes on. In answer to your questions.

Have you been misusing the system or been found misusing the system previously in any way at all? I don't ask to accuse you, but you will need to bear in mind any previous discussions you have had with any managers or call coaches - eg have you ever done the 'ready/release' trick so you are placed at the back of the call queue? If not, excellent. If so, you need to consider what effect that will have had on current perceptions.

No I've never 'intentionally' gone to the back of the queue and never been spoken to about it before either.

Next - is it only one day with an abnormally large number of short calls, or is is across a selection of days? You mentioned logging a fault with IT - did you notice that you had taken a higher volume of calls that day or had strange disconnects, and if you did notice this did you mention it to a Team Leader? If you did notice you had a lot of strange disconnects, why did you not mention it?

The day in question was really no different from any other day. I can't recollect any difference to the call patterns. There were no disconnects that I can remember. I did mention to my coach about the IT issue immediately in the morning.

If there is no pattern of abnormal calls, and it is only on the one day that they have seen, plus you had an issue with your pc that day and got IT to look at your machine, it is unlikely that you will have a problem once these facts come out. These are points you should make in your hearing.

I understand they are looking back over the past number of weeks/months but bearing in mind they are 'stats' mad I'm sure if there was something 'untowards' happening (which there isn't) it would have been picked up previously.

I have still to hear from the company and have yet to receive a letter with the alleged offences. Your post did not upset me in anyway. I understand I have to be strong about this and I'm sure I'll get grilled a lot more when I go to any meeting. Thnaks for your comments.

indeeptrouble

Well 5 days now and still not heard a thing. I wonder how long these investigations take??

poe.tuesday

good advice there CFC and good guidance too

how you doing indeeptrouble?

CFC

Hi Indeeptrouble.

It's sounding positive so far as you have no 'previous form', plus if they keep an eye on the stats that is also a bonus in your situation because any other anomalies should have been picked up before.

As far as how long the investigations take, well, that will be dependent on a)how thorough they are being and b) how much management resource they have to investigate and c)how many people they are investigating.

Take imaginary scenario - management thinks Indeeptrouble has hung up on people. Indeeptrouble is not a known 'naughty one'. Management take issue to HR, HR says suspend and investigate.
HR then also say, hang on, you're going to need to look across the team as well because otherwise in any hearing Indeeptrouble is likely to say, I didn't do this it was an IT issue/everyone does it/all my team are doing it/I'm being deliberately picked on to investigate/I told my manager I was stressed/we weren't trained on this new system correctly (delete as appropriate) so you need to check across the team so we can be sure that we are treating everyone the same.
OK, we've done that, now just to make sure we're also going to check another similar team. Oh hell damn it now we've found a few others we need to investigate. All have to be done at the same time..and now oops we have a massive crisis/management off sick/huge report for head office must be compiled and it's due immediately and all this investigating has to be done at same time....it can take a lot longer than you think it would.

firesidemaid

indeeptrouble wrote: »

Well 5 days now and still not heard a thing. I wonder how long these investigations take??

they can take a good couple of weeks or so. they may be getting 'evidence' (if there is any as such) together. the next step would be then to have a meeting with you to let you know what they have/not found and ask you any questions about it. then they would decide whether or not there is a case to go forward.

i would use your time. i know at the back of your mind you might be thinking i am only off because of.....but whilst it is out of your hands, do something for yourself that you wouldn't normally have time to do.

keep us posted and take care for now