Suspended During Grievance

zzzLazyDaisy

Firstly, thanks to Uncertain and Pricivius for establishing the facts.

I will tell you how it looks to me..

You resigned without notice on Thursday, and on Friday you telephoned the Director and confirmed your resignation.

There are certain restricted circumstances where an employee is allowed to withdraw the resignation - this is known as a 'heat of the moment resignation' where for example and employee has a disagreement with a manager, tells them to stick their job and flounces off. Then once s/he has calmed down, s/he goes back and apologises and says they didn't intend what they said to be taken as resigning. It would be a foolish employer who insisted on relying on a resignation in those circumstances.

But that is not what happened, is it? You resigned plain and simple. If it had been left at that, you would lose a constructive dismissal case for certain? Why? Because the first hurdle is that you have to show that before resigning, you lodged a formal grievance and gave the employer the opportunity to consider the facts and put things right (if something needed putting right). Only if you have exhausted internal procedures without resolving the problem, do you have any chance of succeeding in a CD claim, and even then the prospects if success are slim.

That is why the ACAS call centre operator told you to lodge a grievance. As Uncertain says, the concilliation officers know what they are doing, but the telephone answer service is staffed by people reading from a card - they hear CD, they will always advise you to lodge a grievance first.

In a way, you are fortunate that the employer does not appear to know what they are doing. If they had any knowledge of employment law at all, they would have sent you home when you arrived for work on Monday, written to you accepting your resignation, and refused to hear a grievance as you are not an employee.

Where you are up to now is not clear to me.

They don't appear to want you there, but they have not formally accepted your resignation.

Equally, it is not clear what the purpose of the proposed meeting is. It sounds more like they want to have a meeting with you to consider whether you should be allowed to withdraw your resignation and return to work, than a meeting to hear your grievance (going on the issues they wish to discuss with you).

However, just the fact that they have suspended you on full pay (have they confirmed this in writing?) is evidence that they have accepted that you are still an employee of the company (otherwise they would have no right to suspend you, and you would have no right to be paid).

I have to be honest, I don't think you have helped yourself in all this, but you are where you are.

I suggest that the important thing now is to decide what you want to achieve from this meeting.

In particularly, do you wish to continue working for this company?

Dx

kelly_borntoshop

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

Firstly, thanks to Uncertain and Pricivius for establishing the facts.

I will tell you how it looks to me..

You resigned without notice on Thursday, and on Friday you telephoned the Director and confirmed your resignation.

There are certain restricted circumstances where an employee is allowed to withdraw the resignation - this is known as a 'heat of the moment resignation' where for example and employee has a disagreement with a manager, tells them to stick their job and flounces off. Then once s/he has calmed down, s/he goes back and apologises and says they didn't intend what they said to be taken as resigning. It would be a foolish employer who insisted on relying on a resignation in those circumstances.

But that is not what happened, is it? You resigned plain and simple. If it had been left at that, you would lose a constructive dismissal case for certain? Why? Because the first hurdle is that you have to show that before resigning, you lodged a formal grievance and gave the employer the opportunity to consider the facts and put things right (if something needed putting right). Only if you have exhausted internal procedures without resolving the problem, do you have any chance of succeeding in a CD claim, and even then the prospects if success are slim.

That is why the ACAS call centre operator told you to lodge a grievance. As Uncertain says, the concilliation officers know what they are doing, but the telephone answer service is staffed by people reading from a card - they hear CD, they will always advise you to lodge a grievance first.

In a way, you are fortunate that the employer does not appear to know what they are doing. If they had any knowledge of employment law at all, they would have sent you home when you arrived for work on Monday, written to you accepting your resignation, and refused to hear a grievance as you are not an employee.

Where you are up to now is not clear to me.

They don't appear to want you there, but they have not formally accepted your resignation.

Equally, it is not clear what the purpose of the proposed meeting is. It sounds more like they want to have a meeting with you to consider whether you should be allowed to withdraw your resignation and return to work, than a meeting to hear your grievance (going on the issues they wish to discuss with you).

However, just the fact that they have suspended you on full pay (have they confirmed this in writing?) is evidence that they have accepted that you are still an employee of the company (otherwise they would have no right to suspend you, and you would have no right to be paid).

I have to be honest, I don't think you have helped yourself in all this, but you are where you are.

I suggest that the important thing now is to decide what you want to achieve from this meeting.

In particularly, do you wish to continue working for this company?

Dx

maybe i shouldnt have listened to the Acas phone guy but you think these people are there to give you the best advice - no i probably havent helped myself when you put it like this, on that thursday i really didnt want to go back. i had truely had enough perhaps i should have left it there and not gone in to work.

i dont think i want to stay there and no i dont think they want me there either. perhaps its best to just go to this meeting and resign, its making me ill and its not worth it.

zzzLazyDaisy

kelly_borntoshop wrote: »

i dont think i want to stay there and no i dont think they want me there either. perhaps its best to just go to this meeting and resign, its making me ill and its not worth it.

I suggest that you go to the meeting, hear what they have to say, be polite, take notes, and see what happens.

Why? Because if they dismiss you, that puts you in a much better position.

I am assuming from what you say, that the letter does not tell you that this is a disciplinary hearing? Or that depending on the outcome, you could be dismissed? With a bit of luck, if they do dismiss you, they won't tell you of your right of appeal (and you won't remind them!)

Also, you should go to the hearing prepared to explain what your grievance is. Calmly and clearly, without emotion and without any attitude of 'I know my rights' (just in case you are mistaken!). On that point, I suggest that you might want to make bullet points of the essential points of your grievance, and we can have a look at it for you. They may refuse to listen to what you have to say - but actually since you don't want to work there any more, that is a good thing from your point of view as it will make them look unreasonable.

On the other hand, if they do not dismiss you, then you are free to consider whatever proposals they wish to make, and if you still don't wish to return then you are in no worse a position than you are now.

hth

Dx

kelly_borntoshop

thank you for the advice

zzzLazyDaisy

Ah, okay, first things first - that makes things clearer - and may make a difference.

It seems that they have taken your grievance to be that they have summarised your compaints against them as

Breach of Contract
Breakdown of Trust and Confidence
Duty of Care

Do you agree that this is an accurate summary of your complaint?

Dx

After that we can look at your letter

zzzLazyDaisy

Is there any point in going into all this, if you don't want to carry on working for them anyway?

If you are fighting for your job, that's one thing (even then there is no point in asking for things that you are not going to get)

If you are not going to stay anyway, then you might as well let keep it short and to the point.

There is a huge difference between trying to prove a point and coming across as a 'barrack room lawyer' no matter what the cost to yourself, and deciding what you want to achieve and sticking to it.

It's your call

Dx

kelly_borntoshop

thats the thing.

do i want to go back?
do they want me back?
is there any point in ruining a company just to prove a point? i think not.

i am no legal, but they have took advantage so much i had to draw the line.

the company director treats me like rubbish and will not recognise me for the position i have grown into. there are only 3 of us there, the other guy i have been told i am not allowed to talk to.

suppose its just a case of establishing whether i want to stay and they want me to stay.

should i try and have an informal / off the record chat prior to this meeting? just establish the outlook? obviously i am not there so i dont know how the ground lies now.

zzzLazyDaisy

kelly_borntoshop wrote: »

suppose its just a case of establishing whether i want to stay and they want me to stay.

First thing you have to do is establish if you want to stay. If that's a 'no', then that's straight forward.

It sounds as if what you are saying is 'yes but only if they see it my way and realise that they are in the wrong'. That's not going to happen. If you want to stay you will have to apologise, listen to what they are offering and consider if it is acceptable to you.

Not worth ruining the company? Sorry but you don't have that power.

should i try and have an informal / off the record chat prior to this meeting? just establish the outlook? obviously i am not there so i dont know how the ground lies now.

You are suspended until the meeting. Attempting to contact them to have an informal / off the record chat could be viewed as gross misconduct.

Really, I know I have said this before, but you need to decide whether you want the job. If you do, you will have to climb down from your high horse, and eat humble pie. Sorry to be blunt, but that's the way the dice rolls.

WeakHeart

zzzLazyDaisy is right. All the facts and thoughts buzzing around in your head (understandably) are irrelevant as you really do need to decide what you want. Only then can you determine what the next steps should be. You seem to have a need to understand their position beforehand. For reasons described by zzzLazyDaisy you can't approach them for a chat before your meeting. From what you have described this is where I think they stand if it helps.

Do they want you back? No. They made their position clear all along and when things blew up decided they wanted to accept your verbal resignation. Because of your further conversation they are now backtracking and proceeding in their own communications more cautiously. This is not to help you, it is so that they can cover their backs should this go further. When they sent you home and told you to wait for a phone call it was to stall while they sought advice and their written response to your grievance letter suggests that they are receiving this.


If you have to stay their preference will be for it to be in the admin assistant role with them doing as little as possible for you. They may learn that they have to meet certain obligations (reluctantly). They don't trust you and have said that as far as they are concerned the working relationship will be difficult. You are now a problem to them. From here on they are preparing for the meeting and will only do for you what they are advised they have to.


I note that in your list you put 'room for further growth in the role' suggesting that you are ambitious. Following recent events they do not see you progressing with them now if you do stay. Perhaps this will help you to reach a decision and leave you free to pursue your ambitions in a business where you are more valued, supported, encouraged and happier. If you decide that your goal is to remain employed in the short term (while you consider your future options) a compromise for all may be that you explore the option of the admin position.



If do decide you want to stay you would be wise to follow the advice from zzzlazyDaisy about how to conduct yourself in the meeting. Your aim would be to rescue the situation as best as possible by being assertive but non confrontational, choosing your arguments carefully, being willing to negotiate where appropriate and also helping them (through gritted teeth) to save face.



I hope that you manage to reach a decision and manage an outcome that is right for you so that you can set about securing a position where you can enjoy working again.

mum2one

I would just back up what been said, I would say you really need to decide whether this job is where you want to be or not.

From your list of points - it seems that you want to pull up everything that has happened, that could really get there back up,

My situation was different, I took my ex-employer to ET for sexual discrimination and then a 2nd case for unfair construstive dismissal (between 2002 and 2005) I knew in my heart of hearts that when I went off sick, I had a very difficult pregnancy, that I coudn't go back. We lost the sexual discrimination, but that was due to bad work from my then solicitor, I was lucky I was able to get a new firm to take the unfair constructive dismissal, - we issued proceedings in Dec 2002 - finally took an out of court settlement with no liability admitted in Feb 05.

During that time, we had about 6 hearings at the local ET offices, lost the case, then a barisater got on board and it went to appeal in London (2 hearings) verdict over turned, - then back to square 1 - and week before hearing I took the money.

At the same time the company had sacked a person in the same role as me, she won her case, but only got 2k.....

If someone asked me would I do it again, the answer is no, its hard trying to prove unfair reasonings, time, stress of the hearings, as I was on legal my solicitor would do all the ground work, but i had to represent myself in ET - until it went to appeals in London.

Things may well have changed within the ET systems, but I would say decide what you want, if you want to stay, your end up jumping through hoops, there be looking for fault, but then you could use that time to look for something else.

If its not want you want, - then its a decision you need to make. LazyDaisy has given you some brilliant (all of it) advice.

Its a case sometimes of putting yourself and family first.x