Disciplinary Hearing

Faith177

Hi All

Just need to get this all off my chest as if I dont I'll just sit here worrying ahd going over and over so sorry in advance for boring you all.

OH is a GM for a pub he had a surprise audit yesterday and failed 3 of the 4 sections :mad:

One section was administrative the pub chain has a central server that they do everything through stocks, roats ect. Anyway when a new person starts they take a copy of their passport and all the usual stuff. Now this has always been kept in the lock filing cabinets in the office but apparently from the 1st November all this stuff now needed to be loaded to this server for any new starter from that date. OH didn't know this and it comes to light that a lot of managers across the company have failed this same section and a mass e-mail was sent this morning advising of this change and advising that it seems that alot of people did not know the procedure.

The second section was for the pubs food stock. There was some stock missing but OH knows this is down to a chef that has been sacked in the last couple of months wasting a large amount of food. For example if he needed to make 3 chicken burgers he would cook 6-7 burgers for "spares". As I said he has since been sacked and OH now has new people in the kitchen and they are a lot better and he has put additional measures in place to prevent further unnecessary losses. OH also does not have a kitchen manager at the moment and hasn't since September so this hasn't helped. He put up a advert for the role HR ran it for 2 weeks and then took it down as they thought he had hired one. It took him several weeks for them to get the advert put back up.

The final section was the cash. OH had time off recently to look after my mum following treatment for cancer. While he was away one of the DM's who has also now left failed to notify OH of a £350 deficit in the takings which he should have done despite OH ringing everyday to check how things were and asking if there was anything he needed to know about. The DM also should have investigated it in OH's absence this again was not done. By the time OH went back to work the error was not present.

Sorry to ramble on but I just had to have an off load as I'm really concerned what the outcome of all this is going to be. He was out of work coming up for 3 years ago nearly for about 5 months and it destroyed our savings completely and we still are trying to recover to where we were before as we havent been able to save due to our wedding and then helping my mum out while she has been ill.

I can't talk to my mum about this as she has enough to worry about right and I can't speak to my MIL as we dont have that kind of relationship so just feeling a bit lost right now

The saving grace is that there have been a few managers on the area OH is in that have been through the same process and are still in their jobs. OH has a clean track record and since he took over the pub 17 months ago has turned it around and made it very sucessful this is the first audit he has failed in that time (he has had 4). He is also highly thought of by lots of his head office management so hopefully this will see him through.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and any advice would be greatly appreciated

schpdoinkle

Can't say much about your admin point but it is pretty standard procedure to put employees details onto the systems (due diligence and for wage purposes mainly.

Best thing your OH can do is demonstrate what controls he had in place when the DM was looking after the business. He still has copies of the safe checks, key lines, stock results, ATM refills, AWP and SWP fills as that is part of a basic relief handover.

He needs to show whoever does his investigation hearing that he signed over the business (and that may mean changing the DPS temporarily) totally to his relief DM and he was out of the business totally. Who was actually running the business when the stock was being 'shrunk'? Did your OH not notice a massive change in his GP and if not, why not? If he did notice a change what did he do (or not do) about it?

When your OH took the business back on board he would have done a handover with someone. Safe check, ATM and machine refills and Keylines as a minimum. What did the handover reveal at the time? What discrepancies were shown. The missing money should have highlighted when it was safe check and banking time.

Did your OH challenge the DM with this cash discrepancy as I read it he knew it was missing or am I wrong there? If he did challenge him what was the outcome and can your OH demonstrate he demonstrated due diligence here? Important point if he is trying to justify his GM position.

Hopefully, he can bluff it with the investigation people before it gets to disciplinary action. if it does get to that level then he really needs to have a complete audit trail in front of him to prepare a defence. His back office system (I used Aztec and ViewBase) can provide both his and the companies sides all the relevant information as every transaction is recorded.

Good luck! PM me if you need specific info.

Faith177

schpdoinkle wrote: »

Can't say much about your admin point but it is pretty standard procedure to put employees details onto the systems (due diligence and for wage purposes mainly.

Best thing your OH can do is demonstrate what controls he had in place when the DM was looking after the business. He still has copies of the safe checks, key lines, stock results, ATM refills, AWP and SWP fills as that is part of a basic relief handover.

He needs to show whoever does his investigation hearing that he signed over the business (and that may mean changing the DPS temporarily) totally to his relief DM and he was out of the business totally. Who was actually running the business when the stock was being 'shrunk'? Did your OH not notice a massive change in his GP and if not, why not? If he did notice a change what did he do (or not do) about it?

When your OH took the business back on board he would have done a handover with someone. Safe check, ATM and machine refills and Keylines as a minimum. What did the handover reveal at the time? What discrepancies were shown. The missing money should have highlighted when it was safe check and banking time.

Did your OH challenge the DM with this cash discrepancy as I read it he knew it was missing or am I wrong there? If he did challenge him what was the outcome and can your OH demonstrate he demonstrated due diligence here? Important point if he is trying to justify his GM position.

Hopefully, he can bluff it with the investigation people before it gets to disciplinary action. if it does get to that level then he really needs to have a complete audit trail in front of him to prepare a defence. His back office system (I used Aztec and ViewBase) can provide both his and the companies sides all the relevant information as every transaction is recorded.

Good luck! PM me if you need specific info.

Thank you for your reply.

The new starters details are loaded on to the system but previously the paper documents werent. Just their name, bank account and NI ect was put forward for pay role. As I said this was then changed to say that the scanned copies of the passports ect now also needed to be loaded.

They dont have a hand over/hand bank process that I know of OH has never mentioned it and when I was working for the company OH was a DM at that pub and I never knew of that being done but I will check.

The audit was the first he heard of the £350 being missing. Again due to lack of knowledge on their systems I will need to check. All their banking ect is done electronically through the system I know that much. The DM would have know the money was missing as the system won't let you shut down properly if I remember rightly

With the stocks OH had noticed they were going down he investigated and spoke to all members of staff regarding waste. He also imposed searches incase it was being stolen. When it came to light this guy was responsible OH put him on PIP and he was under performing on this despite OH and the DM's assistance and help. The chef then quit half way through his shift (I'm not sure of the full details) and threw a bowl of hot chips at another member of staff almost hitting her in the face. He returned the next day for his shift and was advised that as he was on probation and due to his failing on PIP plus verbally quitting and the staff member incident that he was no longer employed.

schpdoinkle

this could get serious now.... you've stated the first time your OH knew of a cash discrepancy was only AFTER he signed the handover papers agreeing the cash, stock, key lines figures?

I ask only one question here. Why?

Sorry but you probably don 't want to hear this but .... your OH has made his bed. Time to lie in it. Cash, Alcohol, food all easily 'spirited' away.

Your OH seriously needs to establish what he done to mitigate the companies losses. He was either off on sick leave or out of the business. Which one was he on? And if he was off on leave why is he contacting the DM?

Faith177

schpdoinkle wrote: »

this could get serious now.... you've stated the first time your OH knew of a cash discrepancy was only AFTER he signed the handover papers agreeing the cash, stock, key lines figures?

I ask only one question here. Why?

Sorry but you probably don 't want to hear this but .... your OH has made his bed. Time to lie in it. Cash, Alcohol, food all easily 'spirited' away.

Your OH seriously needs to establish what he done to mitigate the companies losses. He was either off on sick leave or out of the business. Which one was he on? And if he was off on leave why is he contacting the DM?

Sorry got a bit jumbled the first OH knew of the money was when the auditor told him I probably didn't make that very clear. The DM would have know though and shoul have told OH even if he was able to establish what has happened.

He had taken holiday to look after my mum. Most of the GM on the area will ring their DM's while they are away from the pubs to keep an eye on things. DM's will also ring GM's while their away if they need assistance. OH is always getting calls while he's off. He even got a call on our wedding day from his DM to see how to do something on the till because of an error with vouchers.

OH has spoke to the old DM now as they are still friends and even he does know about the missing money apparently so we are totally lost as to what happened to it