Suspended pending disciplinary hearing

gardner1

hcb42 wrote: »

Grovel first....with no "sorry...but...." Show genuine remorse and state it will never happen again.

Once you keep your job, take proper breaks. Leave the office so you cannot be distracted by the phone, walk into town, sit in the car but be out of reach.

doesnt the phone have voicemail?

Gardner1 - a lot of people do not take lunch breaks and work ten hours a day - I know a whole industry that operates like that unfortunately!

if you don't take a lunch break and keep on working/have lunch whilst working more fool them


care to name the industry which operates like that

FinancialController

What no-one seems to have cottoned on to is that you swore at someone after having being provoked and sworn at yourself.

As this was in front of all of those people it is undeniable.

You have quite rightly apologised - as indeed you needed to.

Make it clear to the person concerned that you were provoked and that it was entirely unacceptable that you were spoken to this way in front of your colleagues. Whilst your actions were wrong - they were an isolated and out of character slip.

You are a hardworking and dilgent employee who deserves better. I can think of few tribunals who would not side with you here despite your indiscrete and uncalled for comments.

Make sure that you are not railroaded into anything and while you no doubt feel vulnerable you are only part of the problem

Another_not_new_user

FinancialController wrote: »

What no-one seems to have cottoned on to is that you swore at someone after having being provoked and sworn at yourself.

As this was in front of all of those people it is undeniable.

You have quite rightly apologised - as indeed you needed to.

Make it clear to the person concerned that you were provoked and that it was entirely unacceptable that you were spoken to this way in front of your colleagues. Whilst your actions were wrong - they were an isolated and out of character slip.

You are a hardworking and dilgent employee who deserves better. I can think of few tribunals who would not side with you here despite your indiscrete and uncalled for comments.

Make sure that you are not railroaded into anything and while you no doubt feel vulnerable you are only part of the problem

Sorry but I can think of a lot of tribunals who will not side with the OP - even IF, and it is a huge IF, anyone else is willing to support their statement that the other individual was acting in an inappropriate way. Two wrongs do not make a right. If someone is acting inappropriately towards you, the correct action is to report it or raise a grievance - not to tell them to F**k off.


Apologise yes. Grovel, yes. Say how pressured you may have been on this occasion and how out of character, yes. Make it into a battle and .... well, count up how many of your colleagues are willing to risk their jobs to testify against their employer. This is a battle you cannot win. The simple fact is that regardless of what you consider provocation, you were wrong to respond in the way you did. And a tribunal will say that too. A tribunal is not there to decide whether you were justified. Or whether you or they think you were. You swore at a colleague, you admit it... that, I am afraid, is misconduct.

PHILANTHROPIST

if your employer wants rid of you and is looking to reduce staff they may look to take you through a kangeroo court/ disciplinary process and summarily (ie w/o notice) dismiss you for gross misconduct. Would that be fair ? Only a Tribunal judge could decide and to comment thereupon we'd likely need more facts and circumstances.

If i were advising you and if you have an exemplary record to date I'd be fairly confident I could defend your position in part due to mitigating factors referenced by other members. A written warning would be a reasonable outcome.

FinancialController

That would be my view as well.

The Tribunal system, for the most part, takes these type of things in their stride. Any Adjudicator worth their salt would ask the question as to why a long serving and successful employee would do something out of character like this.

If you were the employer: how confident would you feel attending a Tribumal after having sacked someone for simply responding in a similarly offensive way to treatment meted out to them by you as the Employer.

The previous poster has perhaps not attended too many Tribunals

FBaby

So telling someone they're a ar*se is ok but F** off isn't? Says who? Is there a guide or what offensive words is deemed acceptable and which are deemed sackable?

Forget the issue of being under pressure unless you've raised it officially with your boss before, said that you were worried that it might lead to you doing something unacceptable, requested that steps are taken to reduce the risk and nothing was done. Otherwise, it is irrelevant.

Another_not_new_user

FinancialController wrote: »

That would be my view as well.

The Tribunal system, for the most part, takes these type of things in their stride. Any Adjudicator worth their salt would ask the question as to why a long serving and successful employee would do something out of character like this.

If you were the employer: how confident would you feel attending a Tribumal after having sacked someone for simply responding in a similarly offensive way to treatment meted out to them by you as the Employer.

The previous poster has perhaps not attended too many Tribunals

It is a fairly safe bet that "the previous poster" has attended more tribunals than the rest of you put together.


Tribunals take nothing "in their stride". It is not their job to decide whether they agree that "f**k off" is an ok word to use. It is not their job to take mitigating circumstances into account. It is their job SOLELY to decide whether an employer has applied the law in relation to the process used; whether the employer has a reasonable belief that an offence has occurred; and to determine whether the outcome is one within the spectrum that might be applied by a reasonable employer. assuming that the disciplinary process is conducted fairly in accordance with ACAS guidelines, then the employer certainly has reasonable belief that the offence occurred because it was witnessed. And does telling someone to FO constitute something for which a reasonable employer might dismiss someone? Yes, it does. End of case. And that is all a tribunal does.


Any judge worth their salt knows this. As does any experienced employment lawyer or trades unionist.

dirty_magic

Surely if they both swore at each other if they dismiss one they would have to dismiss the other?

London18

Not a New User is absolutely right and has summarised their role extremely well. ET's are not a re-hearing of the disciplinary. If the employers decision was within the 'band of reasonable response' Tribunals are NOT there to substitute their opinion of what the employer "should" have done. A 'reasonable' is a wide band.

However this is all jumping ahead. Assuming there is a disciplinary hearing then OP, when asked, just factually explain what happened. Be simple, brief and clear. Then:
1) Admit it
2) Apologise
3) Explain it is out of character for you (i assume it is)
4) Explain any mitigation you would like them to take into account (you are a hard worker, committed to job & Company, were tired, had not had a break that day, were take aback by other persons approach)
5) Apologise again.
6) Stop talking
Don't blame other person or use their behaviour to excuse yours. They swore at you first, that is factual so leave it at that. Don't ask what is happening about that person. That might be relevant later but not now.

Can you be dismissed for a one off swearword? Yes.
Is it likely, no (assuming you have no other conduct warnings on file?).
If it goes badly post again and get some advice on appealing.

SW78

Thanks for all responses and opinions.

As it stands, I'm nearly two weeks into my suspension and have received only one letter which states that they are investigating the issue, nothing more.

I feel like they are dragging it out now and or don't really know what to do about the issue. I'm awaiting confirmation of a meeting, whether this will be to purely discuss it [as the letter suggested] or an actual hearing I don't know.

bearing in mind this is a relatively straight forward case as in i apologised and admitted it I'm not sure why it's taking so long.